This first installment of Ģżnew series features director of the , Rosmarie Ruf, who is working to preserve wildlife in this region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The post 30 Years of Conservation Work In the Congo appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

The most famous act of violence in , on the Congo-Rwanda border, is the of seven of the parkā€™s famous mountain gorillas. The second most famous incident occurred this April, when head warden Emmanuel de Merode was , in the chest and stomach, in a roadside ambush. De Merode, a Belgian prince and anthropologist who took the parkā€™s reins in 2008 with a mandate to clean up endemic corruptionā€”his predecessor was implicated in the 2007 gorilla slayingsā€”survived. This week heā€™s in the States to promote , a feature-length documentary by debut director Orlando von EinsiedelĢżthat will begin streaming on Netflix this Friday. Virunga, which premiered at the in April, shortly after the shooting, is best described as a thriller with an agenda. Von Eisendel tails De Merode and his rangers as they attempt to protect the park from poachers, the incursions of a British oil conglomerate, , and a rebel militia called M-23 thatā€™s intent on continuing Congoā€™s two-decade civil war. That conflict, weā€™re told, has claimed the lives of 140 rangers so far.

Is there a more dangerous national park on earth? Itā€™s hard to imagine. We see armed rangers cuddling frightened gorilla orphans as they prepare for an imminent M-23 attack. De Merodeā€™s head lieutenant, a warden named Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo, wears a hidden camera, as does an intrepid young French journalist named Melanie Gouby, in an effort to prove that SOCO is, at best, trying to buy its way into the park. The footage they capture appears pretty damning, showing a Congolese SOCO supporter offering bribes and a French contractor for the company speaking contemptuously about the need to ā€œrecolonize these countries.ā€ (, SOCO executive Roger Cagle dismissed accusations of bribery as ā€œmalicious liesā€ and suggested that the footage had been manipulated in editing.)

Virunga is not an impartial work. The filmmakers are clearly out for pounds (and pounds) of SOCO flesh. But even if the filmmakers fall short in their goal of explicitly proving that Big Oil financed militias in the area, they succeed in producing a powerful film about the cost of natural resources in a stunning and deadly battleground. We spoke with De Merode last week, while he was on a publicity tour for Virunga before heading back to guard the park.

This interview was edited for clarity.

OUTSIDE: You were shot in April. How are you recovering?
DE MERODE: Iā€™m well, thank you. It happened five months ago now so Iā€™ve had time to recover. Itā€™s meant that I could go back to the park and continue the work. In many ways very positive things have been happening since that incident. Thereā€™s every reason to keep going.

Can you walk me through the day of the shooting?
It was on a Tuesday. Iā€™d been working with the courts in Goma on a report. I left Goma at about 3:30 in the afternoon. I was driving back to our park headquarters, about an hour and a half north of Goma. I was about halfway there, driving through a slightly forested part of the road. About 200 meters ahead I saw a man with a rifle. As I approached, I saw him raise that rifle, and I saw two other men crouched in the forest. At that point the bullets started hitting the vehicle, so I ducked. After that, I donā€™t remember it that well, but I know the vehicle stopped because one of the bullets hit the engine or the circuit board. I was able to take a rifle that I had with me, and I left the vehicle. I think it was at that point that I got hit in the chest and the stomach. But I managed to continue and go into the forest.

You jumped and ran into the forest?
I donā€™t know if I ran, because Iā€™d been hit in the chest and stomach, but I was able to move into the forest about 50 meters, and then I fired back roughly in their direction to try and discourage them from pursuing me, and then waited for about half an hour. But I was bleeding a lot, so I knew that I had to get out quite fast. I approached the road again and waited another 20 minutes. Eventually the traffic started coming back. At one point, two farmers on motorbikes immediately came up to me. They threw their vegetables onto the ground and picked me up and drove me out of the area. I was able to get to the hospital and they operated on me immediately.

You were hit twiceā€”what did it feel like?
Well itā€™s obviously very painful. Feels a bit like being winded very hard. Like somebodyā€™s punched you very hard in the chest. But almost immediately afterward, the adrenaline kicks in and you become very focused. So for the first ten minutes, I was focused on staying safe and trying to get away from that situation. The really painful part was being carried on the back of the motorbike on the Congolese roads, which are extremely bumpy. When youā€™re on that road and sort of out of danger, then the adrenaline no longer has that effect and the pain sets in.

Who do you think was behind your shooting?
Unfortunately I donā€™t know. I wish I did. One of them was wearing quite a shabby uniform. But that unfortunately doesnā€™t mean very much. A lot of people who carry guns arenā€™t in the armed forces, and they wear shabby uniforms. I think itā€™s extremely hard for an investigator to unravel whatā€™s behind an incident like that. It was an organized attack. There were a number of people involved, and they didnā€™t steal anything from the vehicle which is what youā€™d expect if it was a random crime. They seemed to be well prepared.

Were you nervous about going back to work?
It was a fairly big deal, because the people who did it have not been caught. Weā€™ve had to take quite significant security measures, so my life has changed somewhat. But in terms of being nervous, not really. I have huge faith in my staff who are there to protect the park and, now, to protect me as well.

What are those measures?
Well, I have a team of park rangers who are with me all the time. They just wonā€™t leave me. They sleep outside my tent and stick with me all the time. So thatā€™s the main measure, but Iā€™m also very much more careful about my movements. You compromise on your freedom, but it does mean that youā€™re safe.

What about the park ā€” is it safe?
The park remains very, very vulnerable with respect to illegal oil. This problem of trying to reestablish the rule of law goes right to the heart of serious problems relating to armed conflict and instability in the region. In June, the oil company did (WWF) that it was going to withdraw from the park. Unfortunately that hasnā€™t panned out the way we hoped. It seems to be business as usual. Itā€™s true that they moved out of the park, but that was because they finished their seismic survey. They were going to do that anyway. Weā€™re still under enormous pressure.

Didnā€™t you have a partnership with WWF?
We had a partnership with WWF and have since suspended it because of their joint declaration with SOCO. It was effectively an endorsement of SOCOā€™s activities and that was unacceptable to us. There are very serious human rights allegations against this company and their supporters, which havenā€™t been addressed. And also there are allegations of bribery by people in the interests of the oil company.

In the film, Congolese men claiming to work for SOCO are secretly filmed offering bribes. Have there been any repercussions or prosecutions?
Weā€™re still a long way from resolving these issues, but there have been some positive steps. There was one character who was part of my own institution, who was part of the park service who worked in the interest of the oil company, and the National Park Service revoked his contract. Thatā€™s a brave measure which makes us feel on the ground supported. This particular character was very involved in the arrest of [Virunga park central sector warden] Rodrigue [Mugaruka Katembo]. Rodrigue was arrested [by Congolese soldiers] in September of last year for preventing SOCO from building in the park. He was , and he was very badly tortured. He had cigarettes burned on his skin, and he was taken out in the forest and they carried out mock executions to try to break him. But action was taken by the parkā€™s authority to correct that. Thereā€™s a long way to go but those are positive steps.

How is Rodrigue now?
Heā€™s in Congo. Weā€™re still very worried about him, because heā€™s still a target. We pulled him out of Congo after he was illegally detained and he spent three months in Kenya for his safety, but on his insistence he went back to Congo to continue his work. So heā€™s still working as the central sector warden. Of course, being Rodrigue, heā€™s doing a fantastic job.

Describe to me a good day in Virunga.
A wonderful day for me is when I get to work in the gorilla sector. I occasionally get to do that. Not as much as I used to and not as much as Iā€™d like, but thatā€™s always an incredible privilege. I spend a lot of time in the field; we have a light aircraft, I get to fly over the park, and see one of the most incredible landscapes on earth. But most of all, itā€™s working with the rangers. Theyā€™re an incredible team, theyā€™re fun to work with, and theyā€™re incredibly dedicated.

The post The Belgian Prince Taking Bullets to Save the World’s Most Threatened Park appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųr Robert Young Pelton thinks he can do what no one else has so far been able to do: Find Joseph Kony, the Ugandan warlord hiding somewhere in Central Africa along with his Lord’s Resistance Army, a ragtag company of abductee child soldiers.Ģż

Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, 2006.

The U.S. State Department has offered $5 million for information leading to Konyā€™s arrest, and heā€™s been wanted since 2005 by the International Criminal Court on 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Most of the world learned of Konyā€™s atrocities last year via Invisible Children’s viral videoĢż. (More than 100 million people saw the video and about as many saw of Jason Russell, founder of the controversial group.)

Pelton, who claims to have located Osama bin Laden in 2003 (ā€œI kept saying he was in Chitral then, which he was.ā€), is calling his manhunt and has teamed up with two filmmakers, Ross Fenter and Rob Swain, to document the experience. To pay for the media part, the trio has set up an .

Pelton says his use of crowdfunding offers an alternative to traditional charities whereby the donor is part of the missionā€”donors supposedly have front row seats to the action. According to Pelton, those who contribute to his campaign will have a say ā€œin making real-time decisionsā€ via direct participation or web feeds.

As of December 4, Expedition Kony had raised $9,231 of the requested $450,000. This doesnā€™t leave much time to fill the coffers if, as Pelton says, the expedition gets underway in January 2014. Pelton, however, is also funded by himself and private donors.

No matter how much money comes in, Pelton says heā€™s going to Africa to find Kony. We caught up with him in Washington, D.C. to ask him about his impending adventure.

Whose idea was this in the first place?
Ross, Rob, and I were sitting around and Ross said, ā€œWhy donā€™t you go find Kony?ā€ And I said, ā€œWhy not?ā€ In the late ā€™90s until 2003, I did this TV series The Worldā€™s Most Dangerous Places, and that was basically me showing people how to find people. I went into dangerous shitholes and found bad guys and terrorist groups. This is a more finely tuned version of that. Iā€™ve been tracking Kony since 1993, and I know the area and how rebels bushwalk and the placement of their camps. So this is a pretty natural idea for me.

Who is Joseph Kony?
Kony is the leader of an ethnic group thatā€™s mutated into a quasi-religious cultā€”similar toĢżal Qaeda. He is not the leader of a functioning military group. His group is broken into small pieces scattered around Garamba National Park in the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Weā€™re talking about 200 people, half of whom are abductees tagging along because theyā€™ve been forced to live in the bush. Heā€™s not representative of a political movement. Itā€™s called the Lordā€™s Resistance Army, but heā€™s not really resisting anyone. Heā€™s not even in the country where he started his fight, which is Uganda.

So I guess the question is, where is he?
My guess is that Kony is traveling with two bodyguards, and heā€™s moving quickly toward Sudan. Keep in mind that for years, Kony was supplied and coordinated by the government of Sudan. For many years he had safe harbor there. The funny thing about fugitives is that they can only stay away from their center of gravity for so long because it costs them so much. But thereā€™s nothing stopping him from getting in a car or a plane and moving hundreds or thousands of miles away. He has a large group of supporters in major cities all the way from Nairobi to Kampala. God knows how many criminals are hiding in the slums of Nairobi right now.

Do you have a method for searching for him?
I use standard search and rescue concepts. Iā€™ve spent a lot of time humping over mountains and know how rebel groups move and think. I know how much they have to eat and how much they have to carry. Iā€™ll use that logic and my investigative journalism skills to contact friends and enemies and people who know Kony. Iā€™ll reconstruct a probable path and thought process. You have to start out where you know he isnā€™t, then zoom in on where he could be and where he wants to be. This guyā€™s not dumb, heā€™s been in the bush for 20 years.

So will you be hacking through the jungle or in a hotel room working the phone?
Letā€™s talk about the Darwinian theory most people have about criminals. They always think theyā€™re hiding in the bush. We thought bin Laden was hiding in a cave because we chose to think that way. We think Kony is hiding in the jungle. In reality commanders typically have a roof over their heads. They have communications, booze, minions, money, supplies, whatever. Itā€™s silly to assume this is going to take on a cartoon-like structure where Konyā€™s running through the bushes and Iā€™m chasing him.

Looks like the area heā€™s hiding in is pretty remote.
When I say Central Africa, you pull up your most stereotypical image and thatā€™s it. Large areas of elephant grass, which you can get lost in three feet off the road. Thereā€™s areas of triple-canopy forest, thereā€™s plantations where people have burned the bush and planted corps. Thereā€™s vast areas officially called national parks, which are actually poaching parks. There are crocodiles that want to eat you, there are mosquitoes that want to kill you, there are angry men with guns who want to shoot you. It’s not going to be easy.

Sounds like a nice place. You hiring security?
Of course. Depending on what weā€™re doing. Bushwalking you donā€™t want to have a huge group. The larger your footprint, the larger a target you are. Work with locals, move quickly, think small. But when weā€™re in the rebel areas, weā€™ll need a truckload of slack-jawed, stoned soldiers to guard us. But not two. If you have two, theyā€™ll fight each other and start a civil war.Ģż

Is there anything about the expedition thatā€™s worrying you?
There are a lot of other people looking for Kony, and not all of them want us to look for him. But there are also people looking for Kony who want us to find him. There are some competing agendas that I hope I can iron out when we hit the ground and get 100 percent of the people rowing in the same direction.

Iā€™ve been in Washington meeting with people who want to get Kony, and now that they know Iā€™m not a lunatic with a samurai sword and a ponytail, I think they get it. Hopefully, we can have unified effort.

So why crowdfunding for this project?
Usually I would just do this, but this is an experiment to see if I can catch peopleā€™s imagination. People say they donā€™t like global warming or child slavery but all they do is throw money at organizations that they donā€™t have any interaction with. People feel let down. Weā€™re talking about giving people a front-row seat, making sure your dollars go to the thing you want them to. Those who have a moral stake in this can be a part of it for five or ten bucks. Weā€™ll be in constant communication with updates on our progress.

Do you think people feel let down by Invisible Children?
You canā€™t fault Invisible Children for what they did. Theyā€™re the biggest reason thereā€™s so much focus on Joseph Kony, even if their methods are a bit bizarre. Theyā€™re responsible for drawing the political support of young voters who wouldnā€™t know where Africa was or what Kony was doing. They took that energy and translated it to political will, which then translated to tax money, which is why U.S. Special Forces are there now. Whoever gets Kony will have my support and admiration. It’s not a contest. But I do like a challenge.

As one State Department person said, ā€œWell youā€™re both zero for zero, so weā€™ll see how it goes.ā€ What that means is that thereā€™s no shortcuts. The proof is in the delivery.Ģż

Well Iā€™d say you have your work cut out for you.
If it was easy it would already have been done. Thereā€™d be Catch Kony bus tours.

Itā€™ll be a true adventure. I have to say, of all the things Iā€™ve done, this ranks up there as a five-star.

The post Funding the Hunt for Warlord Joseph Kony appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

The news out of Africa isnā€™t good. In 2011, poachers slaughtered an estimated 25,000 elephantsā€”and 448 rhinos in South Africa alone. Animal trafficking is now the worldā€™s third-largest criminal industry. Thankfully, a new crop of safaris lets travelers see endangered wildlife and help save it, too.

• 100 Miles for Elephants
• 2013 Safaricom Marathon
• Southern Africa Conservation Safari
• Gorilla Tracking in the Congo

Wild Aid: 100 Miles for Elephants

WHERE: Kenya
WHO RUNS IT: Hidden Places

ā€™ founders, veterinarian Dag Goering and author Maria Coffey, started the to make life better for the worldā€™s largest land mammal. Join them by raising pledges of $500 to $2,500 to walk with Samburu guides on a nine-day camel-supported trek across Laikipia Plateau, home to one of East Africaā€™s largest free-ranging elephant populations. Stay the first night in a luxury tented camp, then rough it for a week in expedition tents. January 23ā€“31; from $3,450 per person.

Wild Aid: 2013 Safaricom Marathon

WHERE: Kenya
WHO RUNS IT: Tusk Trust

This hilly marathon through has raised more than $3 million for conservation projects. In addition to trip cost, overseas participants in the June 29 race pay a $1,500 entry fee, which goes to , a U.K. non-profit devoted to protecting African wildlife. The includes training runs and game drives (June 23ā€“30; $2,799 per person). Slow of foot? Opt for ā€™ Conservation Safari, an 11-day adventure through Lewa, the luxury camp Sarara, and the Masai Mara ($8,995 per person; reference UNCHARTEDCONS2013 when you book to donate five percent of the cost to Tusk).

Wild Aid: Africa Conservation Safari

WHERE: Namibia, Botswana, South Africa
WHO RUNS IT:

This 12-day itinerary offers a crash course in conservation. In Namibia, visit ā€”a wildlife refuge that so impressed Brangelina, the couple donated $2 millionā€”then head to and the , home to cheetah rehabilitation. After a stop in Botswanaā€™s , the trip winds up in South Africa at , where helicopter rides afford sweeping views of the parkā€™s rhino-darting program. Proceeds from this portion of the trip support Kwandweā€™s rhino project. From $7,750 per person.

Wild Aid: Gorilla Tracking in the Congo

WHERE: Republic of the Congo
WHO RUNS IT: The Wilderness Collection

Threatened by poaching and the Ebola virus, the western lowland gorilla is also facing increasing habitat loss. The , a conservation-focused company, is pioneering gorilla-oriented tourism here, opening the first two lodges in the heart of the Congo Basin. At the simple bamboo Lango Camp, you take game drives on the savanna. At Ngaga Camp, in the heart of the rainforest, youā€™ll track gorillas. A portion of your fee goes toward the , which supports anti-poaching programs. From $5,350, plus $650 for internal charter flights.

The post Wild Aid: Safaris With a Purpose appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

Bloody War!

War, by Sebastian Junger

War, by Sebastian Junger

“War is a lot of things and it’s useless to pretend that exciting isn’t one of them.” These words explain, in part, why Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm, spent the better part of a year in Afghanistan’s six-mile-long Korengal Valley, embedded with the U.S. Army, to write War (Twelve Books, $27, May). The title suggests the ambition of the work; Junger set out to write the definitive account of the modern soldier’s experience, and the men he embeds with deliver the goods. The Second Platoon of Battle Company is a collection of chain-smokers half Junger’s age who often fight the Taliban sporting nothing but shorts, flip-flops, and INFIDEL tattoos. Their home is Restrepo, a mountaintop base with no electricity but enough ammo to “keep every weapon rocking…until the barrels have melted…and every tree in the valley has been chopped down with lead.” Restrepo, named after a medic killed in battle, is also the title of a forthcoming film co-directed by Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington. The two-legged, Sebastian-does-Afghanistan project reminds us that Junger has become a brand. But his reporting reminds us that he’s earned his star: Junger grasps the soldier’s fear by living with it, once narrowly escaping death by IED. In April, the Army announced its departure from Korengal, and War will stand as a lasting account of the failed American experiment in this cruel little valley.”It certainly isn’t beautiful up there,” Junger writes of Restrepo, “but the fact that it might be the last place you’ll ever see does give it a kind of glow.”

Books: Playing God!

Lucy, by Laurence Gonzales

Lucy, by Laurence Gonzales

It’s hard enough being a teenager today. Just try it if you’re half ape. That’s the deal in Laurence Gonzales’s coming-of-age-except-I’m-also-part-bonobo biotech thriller, Lucy (Knopf, $25, July). Raised in the Congo by her scientist dad, Lucy is orphaned when insurgents attack their camp; she’s scooped up by a neighboring primatologist, an American named Jenny, and the two leave the jungle for weirder terrain: suburban Chicago. Boy, is Jenny surprised when Dad’s notebooks reveal what the reader already suspects: Lucy’s mom is a bonobo, artificially inseminated by the scientist. Lucy, it turns out, is beautiful, quotes Shakespeare, and prefers to nest in trees. But she’s got some ‘splaining to do when she tosses a wrestler across her high-school gym. Before long, things turn mighty dark for our girl as she juggles YouTube, her budding sexuality (bonobos are omnivorous lovers), and guys in white coats who chase the teen, hoping to open her skull in the name of research. Gonzales goes over the top with Lucy’s perspective on our fallen American lives—OMG, high school is just like the jungle!—but mainly this is an enjoyable ride that makes you think (just not too much) about what it means to be human.

Books: ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Heroes!

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, by James L. Haley

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, by James L. Haley

In Wolf: The Lives of Jack London (Basic Books, $30, June), biographer James L. Haley gives the Oakland-raised writer the chronicling he deserves. At 21, London had already toiled as a cannery stuffer, an oyster pirate, a game warden, a seal hunter, and a coal shoveler. Then a steamship docked in San Francisco with Klondike gold and London hopped the next boat north. His 1897 Yukon folly gave him material for The Call of the Wild and made him vow to give voice to the hardworking poor. There’s been speculation that misery caught up to him back in California (some called London’s 1916 morphine overdose a suicide), but Haley sees his death as an accident: London went out seeking sleep, not suicide. Haley stakes a claim here as a rising voice of the West, with a biography that’s perfectly suited to London’s two-fisted, fortune-seeking life.

Books: Endless Surf!

Sweetness and Blood, by Michael Scott Moore

Sweetness and Blood, by Michael Scott Moore

When Michael Scott Moore, a SoCal kid raised in Redondo Beach, moved to Germany as a political journalist, he discovered something shocking in das Deutsche wasser: surfers on Munich’s Isar River canals. That made Moore wonder: Is the globalization of surf culture a force for good or an ugly Americanization? He chronicles his quest for an answer in Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, with Some Unexpected Results (Rodale, $26, June). Moore drops in on surf culture in Japan, Morocco, Indonesia, Israel, Cuba, and the UK, charting both the history of the sport’s growth and its effect on local behavior. It’s a fascinating journey—Moore takes on everything from the politics of the 2002 Bali bombing to the lineup etiquette of England’s Severn Bore—that ends with a satisfying answer: Surfing may have been spread by America’s global expansion, but the sport’s positive chi has overcome its imperial origins. The eternal appeal of boards in waves boils down to what one Japanese surfer told Moore: “It has good energy.”

Books: Killer Animals!

Deadly Kingdom, by Gordon Grice

Deadly Kingdom, by Gordon Grice

Did you know that albatrosses once pecked at the eyes of shipwreck survivors? Or that caterpillars can bite? These facts and many, many more are on gleeful display in Gordon Grice’s Deadly Kingdom: The Book of Dangerous Animals (Dial Press, $27, May), a highlight reel of anthropophagy spiced up with dashes of science. Grice’s delight is palpable when he describes a shark eating a surfer “as if sampling pĆ¢tĆ© on a cracker,” his disappointment obvious when he concedes that “sharks and crocodilians are the only aquatic animals that unequivocally take people as prey.” The book is high on one-sided battles—Steve Irwin and Roy Horn get nods—and low on political correctness. There’s no they-have-more-to-fear-from-us-than-we-do-from-them malarkey here. Grice posits that, thanks to guilt wrought from the Jaws phenomenon, we fear predators less than ever. But that’s not why you should read this book. Read it for lines like this: “Men sped across the face of the water, propelled by unseen sharks.”

Books: Legendary Battles!

The Last Stand, by Nathaniel Philbrick

The Last Stand, by Nathaniel Philbrick

Just when you thought nothing more could be written on Lieutenant Colonel George Custer, along comes a brilliant narrative that gives new life to the U.S. Army’s most embarrassing domestic defeat. The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Viking, $30, May), by National Book Award winner Nathaniel Philbrick, rivals Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn in its breadth and accessibility, following the converging paths of Custer and Sioux chief Sitting Bull. Philbrick blames the Seventh Cavalry’s massacre on commander General Alfred Terry, who knew Custer lacked the humility to back down from a fight and who has since “slunk back into the shadows of history, letting Custer take center stage in a cumulative tragedy for which Terry was…responsible.” The Seventh doesn’t come off much better, depicted as a band of drunk savages led into battle with those most famous of last words: “Boys, hold your horses. There are plenty of them down there for us all.”

Books: Crazed Jocks!

The Renegade Sportsman, by Zach Dundas

The Renegade Sportsman, by Zach Dundas

It’s time we reclaim the raw heart of the game from what Zach Dundas calls the “sports-industrial complex” in The Renegade Sportsman: Drunken Runners, Bike Polo Superstars, Roller Derby Rebels, Killer Birds, and Other Uncommon Thrills on the Wild Frontier of Sports (Riverhead, $15, June). After reading this nationwide tour of alt athletics, you’ll want to join the Hash House Harriers, a Portland, Oregon–based running group that fuels up with beer. The Renegade Sportsman establishes Dundas, a first-time author, as a P.J. O’Rourke for the bike polo set: irreverent without the snark, and often hilarious. There’s someone drinking beer on nearly every page as he takes you deep into, in his words, “sports’ terra incognita, where the tigers and dragons and drunk cyclocrossers and lesbian rugby players dwell.” And Dundas doesn’t always feel the need to go the Plimptonesque immersion-journalism route. Instead of pedaling the Trans Iowa, a 300-mile gravel grinder through corn country, he opts for driving the course with Guitar Ted, a Nugent fanatic turned race director; the 22-hour drive proves to be a much greater—and funnier—sufferfest.

Books: Epic Quests!

The Last Empty Places, by Peter Stark

The Last Empty Places, by Peter Stark

A few years ago, ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų correspondent Peter Stark dug up a satellite image of the United States taken at night, found the unlit areas, and began to plot. Like many Americans, he didn’t consider his country wild—too much connective pavement, too many yellow arches—but he wanted to prove himself wrong. So Stark traveled through Maine, Oregon, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania looking for emptiness. He failed: In every destination, Stark unearthed stories of the settlers and Native Americans who’d come earlier. That’s what makes the resulting book, The Last Empty Places: A Past and Present Journey Through the Blank Spots on the American Map (Ballantine Books, $26, June), so intriguing, both a solid refresher on our savage colonial history and a smart rumination on what it means to get lost. Stark’s conclusion: While there may be no such thing as a literally “blank” spot on the map, that fact can’t diminish the power of the wilderness. What he perfectly captures is the electric wonder a person feels when setting eyes, for the first time, on a fast river breaking through a forest. “In the blank spots,” he writes, “what exists, we hope, is meaning.”

The post Hot Type appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

Tim Roman punches a button atop the glass coffee-table-cum-fish-tank in his living room. An electronic chime echoes through the house, and out shuffles his cook. “Ribs tonight, Crispin,” Roman says.

Africa

Africa

Roman in the cockpit of his Gulfstream II in Kinshana

Ģż

“Yes, boss,” Crispin says with a bow.

“And two Cokes,” Roman adds, sucking on a Marlboro. “They got the best Cokes in this country. All local sugar. None of that corn syrup.” He takes another puff and laughs. “It's great. I push a button and they bring me a Coke!”

“This country” is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire. Roman's spacious house sits behind high walls topped with coils of razor wire in Kinshasa, a teeming city of eight million on the verge of chaos. It's November 2006, and three months ago the country held its first democratic elections since 1960, a $500 million project overseen by the United Nations. Joseph Kabila and his main rival, Jean-Pierre Bembaā€”a former personal assistant to the long-deposed dictator Mobutu Sese Sekoā€”were forced into a runoff just a week ago, and the votes are still being counted.

Kabila is expected to win, and Roman is part of Kabila's circle of contacts. No one knows how Bemba will react if he loses, but in a place like Congo, he who losesā€”and we're talking about not just one man but his whole posse, including armed militias and their access to diamonds and goldā€”loses everything. Out on Kinshasa's streets there are thousands of UN troops in sandbagged machine-gun nests, set amid chickens and burned cars and spiraling columns of smoke. Kinshasa is so crumbling and crowded that it looks like the set for some post-apocalyptic Hollywood extravaganza. This house has been attacked twice, and twice Roman has returned fire.

“I got the razor wire on the inside,” he says, swigging his Coke. “That way, they'll get tangled up when they hit the ground.” Right now all is relatively calm inside the boss's place: CNN is cranking loudly, the A/C is humming, a white toy poodle, Boxy, is jumping on the sofa, and Roman, a hyperactive American expat, is juggling two cell phones that never stop ringing. No leaving the house today; he's down with a touch of malaria. He's 43 and big, really big. Fat. There's just no other word for it. But despite his massive bulk, there's something attractive about his large brown eyes and expressive face, something grizzly-bear cute. His voice is deep, gravelly, and his small hands are lively when he talks.

The phone rings, Roman sighs, andā€”no hello, no pleasantriesā€”just starts talking. “So he's got malaria? So big fucking deal! If he's sick, tell him to go to the fucking hospital. Here. If he goes home, he's not coming back.”

Roman hangs up, exasperated. One of his American engineers says he's sick, but Roman isn't buying it. “He's in love!” he croons in a baby voice. “Can you believe it? He buys a menyapa in the villageā€”not a queen who lives in Kinshasa but a woman who lives in a mud hutā€”and he's in love and wants to bring her home!”

Roman is creating an empire in Congo. He's got a thousand guys working for him, building roads and bridges in the middle of the jungle. A 50,000-acre farm. A two-million-acre mining concession. A “country house” at a lovely bend in the river that he bought from “a chief for two hundred bucks and a bag of beans.” He's got Wimbi Dira Airways, an airline hauling 1,000 tons of cargo and 3,000 passengers a month. Not so long ago he was just a flying cowboy, free. Now he's stuck on the groundā€”a big man in Africa trying, as he says, “to control the uncontrollable,” addicted to the adventure, addicted to the perks of the expat life, but entwined in something so big and complex that it's hard to get a handle on. He's got vicious heartburn, the malaria comes and goes, he's having trouble sleeping thanks to all the pressure. He's got a wife in Pennsylvania whom he hasn't seen in eight months, and he's fed up with the endless strain, but he's half African himself now.

Suddenly CNN falls silent; the A/C stops. The power is out. Roman cocks his head and curses. There's a bleep, and the generator roars to life. He nods. The phone rings again. This time Roman is all obsequiousness.

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Where would you like to go, sir? One question, sir: Do you have clearance to land? I'll text you in one minute, sir.” He hangs up. “Fuck,” he says. “The minister of finance. And I don't have a copilot. Do you have a pilot's license?” he asks me. A flurry of calls and in ten minutes it's done. “OK, we're set. Anybody else I would have said ā€˜Fuck you,' but he writes the checks, you know. We're going to Nigeria. The minister needs to see the president.”

THEY ARE THE WORST OF THE WORST, violent hellholes where the last person you'd expect to find living large is some small-town American. Congo is a country the size of Western Europe, with only 300 miles of paved roads. It's a country reeling from 32 years of despotic one-man rule and another ten of civil war, a place where, in late 2006, 18,000 heavily armed UN troops were trying to keep the peace long enough to hold the elections. And where, the grapevine said, there was this guy from Pennsylvania making big money and having the time of his life.

“I'm sitting here watching Six Feet Under and the pool and hot tub are ten feet away,” Roman said when I called him from the U.S. “What's not to like? Come on out for a visit. I make the best damn martini on the continent!”

Roman arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, in late 1996, when the heart of Africa was pumping blood. In Rwanda, the Hutu had recently hacked to death 500,000 of their Tutsi countrymen. The Tutsi chased many of the murderous Hutu across the border into eastern Zaire, where more than a million of them gathered around the town of Goma. That was the beginning of the end of Zaire and its storied big man, Mobutu Sese Seko. It was also the beginning of Roman, a white guy from Hazleton, Pennsylvania, who helped take over a country.

When he arrived, Roman was 33 and knew nothing about Africa. But he had a thirst for adventure and he'd been around, to put it mildly. His father operated a farm, a construction company, and an airport-services operation in Hazleton. Flying and workingā€”that's all young Tim did. By age 17 he had a private multi-engine-airplane license. Later, he became a fire-bomber pilot for the U.S. Forest Service, flew for USAir, and started a construction business and aircraft-maintenance shop in his off hours. When he got laid off from USAir in 1992, he bought his first Nord 262ā€”a French-made two-engine turboprop with high wings, good for hauling cargo or passengers on and off short landing strips. Then a friend in the maintenance business told him about a Colombian he knew who had a Nord in Panama that had been shot up in the 1989 U.S. invasion.

That's how Roman found his true calling, the perfect business for a pilot who loved money but didn't mind a little discomfort. Wherever there is chaos and violence on the ground, you'll find men (and a few women) like Roman: Westerners with airplanesā€”complex, expensive machines that soar over roadblocks and pirates and borders and rapacious rebel armies and trackless jungles. Sometimes they work on their own, sometimes they do dirty work for governments or governments-in-waiting. Sometimes they do a little of everything. They're gods, of a sort, not bound to the land. If things get too bad, they just take wing and fly away.

Roman went to Panama in '92, got the plane running, and flew it to BogotĆ”. The Colombian needed airplanes to fly “things.” The Nord was perfect, so Roman bought 13 more. But then the Colombian and his partners ran into a bit of troubleā€”one was arrested, the other killed. Suddenly Roman had a bunch of planes and not enough business, so he leased them to operators in Honduras, Guatemala, and Kenya, where he went to personally train the crew in the aircraft's operation and maintenance.

Africa is even more tangled than South America. Roman wasn't flying tourists over game parks; he was flying the amphetamine-like drug khat into Mogadishu, Somalia, where he got shot at, he says, “every fucking day.” And Zaire, just a few countries away, was not just a blank nothingness of jungle and desperate people; it was one of the richest places on earth. Under its jungles and savannas, in its immense rivers, lie gold and diamonds and copper, uranium and cobalt and oil. Riches so immense they boggle the mind and aid the rise and fall of nations thousands of miles away.

When the Hutu fled to Zaire, all hell broke loose. Zairean rebel Laurent-DƩsirƩ Kabila, a native of eastern Zaire, had been fighting Mobutu for some 30 years. Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire was born, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, and full-fledged war broke out in eastern Zaire.

In Nairobi, Roman watched. The guns of Mogadishu didn't bother him as much as not getting paidā€”after three months in Nairobi he still hadn't received the monthly leasing fee for his airplane. He could file suit to repossess the aircraft, but Roman sensed a better opportunity: Some passengers needed to get from the Rwandan city of Kigali to Goma, the Hutu stronghold. He fired up the Nord and took off, his Kenyan copilot and the plane's Kenyan “owner” fully expecting the Nord back in Nairobi in a day or so. But Roman wasn't coming back. He was seizing his own plane and flying it to the safest place he could think ofā€”the middle of a violent African war zone, a place without rules or laws about who owns what, a place where more than four million people would die over the next few years.

Roman flew to Kigali, picked up his passengers, and flew on to Goma, in the thick of the war. The thing was, everyone spoke French. “I was fucked,” Roman says. But, while standing around on the airport's ramp, he fell into conversation with the sole English speaker, a young Congolese man named Joseph. They talked, they laughed, they shot the shit. That afternoon a Mercedes SUV pulled up and the driver waved Roman over. Joseph was inside, as was an older man. “We have a mission for you,” they said. “Can you do it?”

“If I know what it is,” Roman said, “I can do anything.”

They asked him to fly three dead and two wounded to a country that Roman won't name. “In the dark,” he was told.

“Not at night,” Roman said. “But I'll take off at 5 a.m. in the dark and land in the light.”

Joseph, it turned out, was Joseph Kabila; the older man was his father, Laurent. When Roman dropped off his cargo, his mechanic and the Kenyan copilot ran awayā€””They were scared shitless,” he saysā€”and Roman returned with a load of weapons. And never stopped. For the next five months, Kabila's forces marched south and west toward Kinshasa, aided by Rwanda and Uganda.

“I did frontline support and hip-hopped my way to every dirt strip from Goma to Kinshasa,” Roman says. Bukavu. Kisangani. Lubumbashi. One shithole after another, a big fat white American smack in the heart of an epic African war and loving every minute of it. “I am an adrenaline junkie with a high tolerance for aggravation,” he says.

He flew rebel VIPs and weapons, under fire, to strips without navigation aids, strips that had been mortared, through thick African smoke and tropical thunderstorms that were “harum-scarum violent motherfuckers.” He slept in the plane, slept under the plane, ate whatever they fed him. He flew giant 105-millimeter howitzer shells, 30 to a load, two loads a day. In May 1997, Kabila's forces swept into Kinshasa and Mobutu fled the country. Kabila became president. Zaire became Congo. The U.S. embassy was in lockdown behind double rows of steel girders and a fortress of walls and barbed wireā€”but there was Roman, out and about.

“I left the bank in a Toyota pickup filled with sacks of cash,” he says, “and drove through Kinshasa sitting on top of the money with a soldier holding an AK-47.”

IT'S 6:30 A.M. WHEN ROMAN picks me up in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes. We race through the streets of Kinshasa, swerving around potholes that could disable a bus and immense piles of fermenting garbage. Barefoot people are thwacking mangoes out of trees, and gnarled women are tending gardens in the median strips. The city is Bemba territory, and it's tense. A pro-Bemba handbill is being passed around that rails against Kabila for being a puppet of the muzungaā€”whites from the World Bank and the UNā€”and calls on the people to rise up. “This place is gonna be on fire!” Roman says, laughing.

We drive through the “red zone”ā€”where Bemba loyalists rioted in August 2006, killing 34ā€”pick up copilot Bruce Watson, and head for N'djili airport, 16 miles east of the city. Watson is 61, thin and gray-haired, an Australian citizen who's barely set foot in Australia, having lived his whole life in Congo. The former chief pilot for Air Zaire, he's got 23,000 hours of stick timeā€””an all-star in the flying game of Africa,” Roman saysā€”and is now chief pilot for Roman's airline. The road to the airport passes through a “³¦¾±³ŁĆ©,” a slum so dense it seems impossible. There are tens of thousands of people on the roadside, hanging on to the roofs and bumpers of minivans, running through the street. The car windows are up, the doors locked, the side-view mirrors pulled in tight. “They'll rip the mirrors right off the car,” Roman says.

“Ever heard of the word lapidation?” asks Watson. “It means being stoned to death. That's what they do here.”

We pass the airport, turn up a side road, come to a gate manned by soldiers packing AK's. “Presidente!” yells Roman. They salute, the gate swings open, and we roll onto the flight line, right up to a small executive jet that looks like it's seen better days. Soldiers are everywhere. A skinny guy opens the plane and starts wiping down the stairs; Roman checks the flaps, peers into the engine, and whips out a stack of $100 bills, which he hands to the fuelers.

Suddenly four men in dark suits appear, accompanied by more soldiersā€”the DRC's minister of finance, the Nigerian ambassador to the DRC, and two bodyguards. Watson is already in the copilot's seat. Roman sees the men into the plane, stows their bags, and motions me in. The plane is tinyā€”six leather seatsā€”and threadbare. It's 30 years old, the gold carpet is stained gray, and I squish a cockroach as I strap into a flight attendant's seat behind the cockpit.

Ten minutes later we're up, breaking through heavy clouds into sharp sunlight, climbing to 31,000 feet at 440 knots. The heat and humidity and pathos of Kinshasa are gone. We are free. Roman fires up a Marlboro.

SOON AFTER LAURENT KABILA took over Congo in 1997, he called Roman in for a meeting. “He asked me to get a small jet,” Roman says. He bought the Sabreliner we're flying in nowā€”and later a Gulfstream IIā€”and became the unofficial official state pilot. Mobutu was out, Kabila was in; it was time for peace. But this was Africa, and the two countries that had helped Kabila were exacting their rewards in the east, sucking diamonds out of the country. Kabila believed his power was secure; in July 1998, with the stroke of a pen, he sacked his Rwandan chief of staff and ordered all Rwandans and Ugandans out of the country. The second Congo war began. Rebels allied with Rwanda and Uganda hijacked a 707, filled it full of troops, and flew it to Kitona, on the Atlantic coast. Within weeks they and other troops had marched on Kinshasa, cut power to the city, and taken over half the airport.

Kabila reached out to his neighbors, and Roman and Watson went to work. With power out and roads blocked, a helicopter plucked Roman from his house and flew him to the airport; it was shot down two flights later. Roman used the Sabreliner to shuttle generals to Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Sudan, while Kabila hunted frantically for troops and weapons.

“The airport was on fire, and the rebels had RPGs and American-made Stingers, so I'd take off in the dark at full power right on the deck until I was three or four miles out, then I'd streak to 13,000 feet.” He flew to Johannesburg and back twice a day, 16 hours nonstop. That month he flew 180 hours in all. (In the U.S., the FAA limits commercial pilots to 100 hours a month.) The shuttling paid off: Troops and weapons poured in from Angola and Zimbabwe and Chad, flown by Watson, who carried more than 500 troops per load in a 707. Amid the frantic flights a Congolese diplomat named Kikaya Bin Karubi came face to face with Tim Roman for the first time.

“I was flying to Zimbabwe,” Karubi recalls, “and I was asked by the president to look after the pilot, and I was shown Tim. I said, ā€˜What kind of pilot is this?' Laurent-DĆ©sirĆ© Kabila had been a rebel his whole life. He was known for his anti-American sentiment, and this was a huge contradiction in my mind. I said to the president, ā€˜Who is this man? Do you trust him? He could be working for the CIA!' And the president said, ā€˜I trust him with my life.' Tim took many risks and flew many dangerous missions. He played an important role in our country.”

Kinshasa was soon secure, but the old man's days were numbered. In 2001 Roman was downtown when his telephone rang. “There's a problem,” said the caller. “Go to the airport. Now.”

By the time he got there, rumors were flying: The president had been shot by one of his bodyguards and was hurt bad. “The airport was in lockdown,” says Roman. “My mechanics ran away like dogs and my driver jumped out of the car at 50 miles an hour.” Soon the phone rang again. It was Joseph Kabila. The old man was dead. “Don't move the airplane,” he told Roman, “unless it's my voice.” Roman sat in the plane for three days. When things finally calmed down, Joseph, at 29, had become the youngest president of potentially the richest country in Africa. Over the next few years Roman flew to every country on the continentā€”South Africa, Chad, Algeria, Libya, everywhere. “I met the colonelā€”Qaddafiā€”three times.” And he made, he says, “millions and millions of dollars.”

TWO AND A HALF HOURS AFTER taking off from Kinshasa, we land in Abuja, Nigeria. After refuelingā€”Roman pays with 31 $100 billsā€”we park the plane next to a brand-new Nigerian air force 737. A red carpet leads our group to a building filled with more red carpet, Oriental rugs, and clusters of cushy leather chairs. The minister and the ambassador sit in one group, we sit in another, and we wait. And wait. We drink tea out of bone china embossed with the presidential crest; we ogle the horseless presidential horse guard, dressed in knee-high black leather boots, red tunics with brass buttons, and white pith helmets topped with spear points.

Africa is about waiting, and Roman can sit like this for days, barely moving, barely speaking, an improbable figure in size 54 Levi's and white Nike sneakers. “Once I flew to Algiers for a ten-minute meeting and we waited for a week,” he says, shrugging his massive shoulders.

But Watson is a talker, filling the dead air with tales of Stanley and Livingstone, Congo's beauty in colonial days, and the politics of dictators and minerals. “Mobutu in Congo, Pinochet in Chile,” Watson says, leaning in close, the sound of conspiracy in his whisper. “Why'd the U.S. support them for so long? Uranium. It's right at the surface in both places. The minute they found uranium in Australia, Mobutu and Pinochet were gone. In the eighties, the Soviets were taking over Angola, and I made ten flights between Congo and Brussels in a DC-8 carrying 40 tons of uranium in kegs.”

Late in the afternoon a cadre of generals arrive. We stand. In sweeps Olusegun Obasanjo, the president of Nigeria, decked out in flowing green robes and a little green Kewpie hat. He gives us a wave and a thousand-watt smile, shakes hands with the minister; the Africans disappear into an adjoining room. Ten minutes later it's over. Obasanjo glides down the red carpet into his jet and we pile into cars, racing down Bill Clinton Drive toward downtown Abuja.

“Nigeria is English, right?” says Roman, lighting a cigarette. “Maybe they've got bacon here. You can't get good bacon in Kinshasa.”

“And lamb,” says Watson, sucking on a cigar.

Compared with Kinshasa, Abuja looks like Paris. The Hilton is polished and vast. The lobby is packed. There are American oilmen in khakis and polos, Nigerians in diaphanous robes, Arabs in caftans. The minister needs to be in a suite, his guards need to be next door, and each of us needs a room. But the hotel is full, and one of the guards, a small, angular fellow with a gold police badge on his belt and an automatic on his hip, can't speak English. Romanā€”massive, gruff, sweatingā€”bends down, props his belly on the desk, leans in, and turns on his mysterious charm. Suddenly he's a harmless boy, his little hands doing an innocent dance. The woman behind the desk is batting her eyes, laughing, flirting back. And thenā€”poof!ā€”the rooms are found. The guard counts out 35 hundreds from a two-inch-thick wad and we're set.

The next morning, when Roman tries to fire up the Sabreliner, it's dead. The starter on one of the engines is broken. In a flurry of phone calls he locates a spare in Kinshasa and finds a jet in Lagos. In all, he's told, it will cost $30,000 to have the jet come pick up the minister, fly him to Kinshasa, pick up the part, and take it to Lagos, where it can ship commercial to Abuja.

We pace, we drink tea, the minister frets, Roman works the phone, and late that afternoon the jet arrives. The bodyguard reaches for his banded stacks of hundreds, forks over two bricks of $10,000 each, the minister flies away, and we head back to the odd netherworld of the Abuja Hilton. We wait two more days, eating Mongolian barbecue and drinking in the bar as a Little Richard look-alike shimmies onstage. I hear Roman tell someone he's “the last warrior in Africa,” and we make one foray into the cityā€”to buy eight pounds of bacon and two large legs of lamb.

By the time we roar out of Abuja, it's three in the afternoon on day four. Soon we're at 39,000 feet and the continent unfolds like a carpet of green cut with shimmering blue rivers. This business of flying in your own plane in Africa is addictive. We're suddenly unstuck from the stickiest place on earth. As Roman is fond of saying, “What's not to like?”

IF ROMAN HAD CONFINED himself to flying and gone home after he'd made his money, he could be sitting on a boat in the Caribbean with a cold beer, millions in the bank, and a bunch of good yarns to spin. But he wanted more. So when things settled down (more or less), Roman returned to his rootsā€”the construction business. With his family building roads in the States, Roman thought, why not build some in Congo?

It's dawn when we head to the airport for a one-hour commercial flight to a place called Kikwit to see his biggest project. The moment we landā€”piling into a four-wheel-drive pickup and heading outā€”it all becomes clear. Building roads is nothing like flying. To fly is to be untethered, a privateer, an adventurer. To build roads is to be stuck.

We're into the bush in minutes, weaving around potholes and ditches and bicyclists and women carrying loads of charcoal and branches on their heads, into a world of sticks and mud and trees. The pavement ends and we slow to a crawl. The driver is grinding the gears, inching around holes, and Roman is growing apoplectic.

“Vite! Vite!” he yells. “Fucking monkeyā€”he can't drive. Stop. ArrĆŖtes. Pull over, you idiot.” He kicks the driver into the backseat and takes over, roaring through the mud and dirt.

For this project, which is funded by the Congolese government and the World Bank to the tune of $21 million, Roman is building 150 miles of road and four bridges, the largest 1,200 feet long. He imported 150 pieces of heavy machinery that took six months to bring in by river and road. Now it's on the verge of falling apart, of spinning out of control, all for a road that some bureaucrat somewhere imagined would transform a country. Every one of Roman's 25 GM trucks has been destroyed by brutal roads and careless driving. He's using 75,000 gallons of fuel a month, and it takes 40 days to get it to the job site … if it gets there at all.

“Can you imagine what that does to your cash flow?” he says. He erected a satellite dish at the camp, but it was ruined by lightning. His workers are siphoning off the hydraulic fluid and selling it as diesel; it rains constantly, a downpour that turns everything to gray peanut butter.

After three hours we reach the road he's been building, and it's worse than the one we were just on, nothing but canyons of ruts. We pass villages containing a handful of mud huts, an inscrutable world that makes Roman seem like a speck of dust. “The trucks are ten-ton trucks carrying 30 tons, and they destroy the road the day after we scrape 'em,” he says. We inch and bump and then race along wildly where the road permits. People leap out of the way; Roman narrowly misses goats and dogs and children but aims for the chickens.

“Got that fucker,” he yells as we hear a momentary thump. “No one builds roads in the middle of nowhere anymore. Man's work. People come out here and suddenly they're working for the Peace Corps or something. But I'm gonna scare 'em today. We gotta get this fucker done or I'm gonna run out of cash.”

After eight hours we reach the head of the project, where his equipment has plowed a red-earth line through thick green bush. He's almost Kurtzian now, being driven mad by the place, caught in its web. “We're a thousand goddamned miles from anywhere, chief,” he says, “and there ain't no Wal-Mart.” In the cockpit of his airplane, Roman is necessaryā€”only he can fly it. Out here he's subject to a thousand African vagaries that he can't control, and the frustration is driving him nuts.

He slides to a stop by a huge Caterpillar shovel that's silent. “Quel problem?” he shouts to a terrified Congolese driver. “Quel problem?” The driver's eyes are wide with fear; he tries to explain. Roman cuts him off. “Get in that fucking machine!” he screams. “Now. Start it up. Now.”

The guy climbs in and tries to move the shovel. “Fuck, the seal is broken,” Roman says. “That's brand-new. You're fired. Back to Kinshasa for you.” Then he jumps in the car and careens away to the mission station where his camp is based to hunker down with his foreman.

AS DARKNESS FALLS in the camp, Roman gets word from Kinshasa. The election results are in: Kabila has won, Bemba is claiming fraud, and the city is bracing for trouble. “We gotta get out of here,” Roman says. “If the shit hits the fan, I gotta be there. If planes stop flying we could get stuck out here for weeks and weeks.”

At midnight we pile into the truck and go. It's pitch black. Pouring rain. The road is almost impassable. We crawl through the night, Roman berating the driver. “You fucking asshole!” he shouts.

After nine hours of kidney-thumping automotive violence we roll into Kikwit and Roman's cell phone lights up. “Shit, the chagasā€”street people loyal to Bembaā€”have taken over the ³¦¾±³ŁĆ©,” he tells us. “The embassy is in lockdown.” As his camp manager fights for seats on the airplane at the ticket office, streams of soldiers jog along the street, hundreds of them, all heading in one direction.

“You see these guys?” Roman asks. “There are too many in one place. They're massing, and they don't belong to the chiefā€”they're all from the west. I don't trust Bemba.” It's an eerie scene. Their boots are clomping on the pavement in a steady beat, Roman is covered in dirt and sweat, unshaven. The camp manager emerges: no seats until the second flight.

“There will be no fucking second flight, and we'll be lucky if there's a first,” Roman barks. “That son of a bitch just wants money. Tell him I'll call his boss in Kinshasa and get us on that fucking flight.” Ten minutes later the manager emerges with two tickets. As we pile into the truck, a soldier with mirrored sunglasses comes up to us and starts shouting. “Fuck him,” Roman says. “And drive.” We ignore the soldier and take off. Roman tells the manager, “The airport will be safe, but when you drop us off go straight back to the camp, immediately.”

Three hours later we're back in Kinshasa, cruising through a largely deserted city. The block in front of Bemba's headquarters is full of guys throwing rocks, 15 UN armored personnel carriers lined up one street over. But other than that, the city is calm, with no apparent need for an embassy lockdown.

“Americans are pussies,” Roman says. “Let's go home.” The gates to his home swing open, Boxy the poodle comes bounding up, and the house smells delicious. “Check this out,” he says, dragging me into the kitchen. “Wanna smell split-pea soup like your mama used to make?”

Suddenly the phone rings. It's Joseph Kabila. The president. “Yes, sir,” Roman says. “Yes, sir. Congratulations. Now you've got a country to build. Yes, sir.”

“Shit,” Roman says when he hangs up. “He wants to build 10,000 kilometers of road in the next ten years. And prisons. He wants to build prisons.”

He pauses a moment and stares into space. The pool is shimmering. The walls high. “God,” he says, lighting a cigarette, “I made millions and millions flying for these guys and I just poured it back into the country. Sometimes I just want to go home, do something different. I'm worn down. But I've been to just about every country in the world, stayed at every Four Seasons hotel, slit kilos of coke with my finger, flown jets. What else could I do now? Where else could I go?”

He hits the button, the chime sounds, and Crispin comes out with a bow.

“Yes, boss?”

“How about a couple of martinis?”

The post Strange Bird appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

WE ALL HAVE A PLACE WE DREAM OF. We've visited it many times without ever having set foot there. It's someplace far away, someplace exotic. Although we've never seen it, we know what it looks like, for we half-created it, using a book we read, or think we read, when we were nine or ten, something we overheard at a party in a villa in Italy, and the one unforgettable image from a slide show in Bozeman. This is enough. Like a child with a refrigerator box in the backyard, a bread knife, and crayons, we've fashioned the dream of a place to which we've never been but long to go.

uganda congo

We carry it with us in the backs of our minds. It's our private dream. The way a tomboy keeps a smooth stone in her pocket, we don't share it with just anybody. It's not a place anybody else would necessarily want to go anyway.

As we grow up, this enchanted outpost can disappear inside us, if we let it. Most of us don't. Instead, we hold on to our magical place, filling in the blank spaces with facts and images we pick up along the way. Then one day something happens. The trigger may be obvious or unconsciousā€”no matter. The time has come to visit this place in the flesh.

I DON'T REMEMBER when I first heard of the Mountains of the Moon. Perhaps it was as far back as elementary school, when we learned that the Nile is the longest river in the worldā€”4,160 milesā€”and that Ptolemy, second-century Greek polymath, named its source the Lunae Montis, or Mountains of the Moon, the mythic snowcapped peaks that rose from the jungles of central Africa. The source remained unknown until 1858, when British explorer John Hanning Speke discovered Lake Victoria and declared it the river's origin. But it wasn't until 1888 that Henry Morton Stanley became the first European to see the highest source of the ancient river: the snow mantling the equatorial peaks of the Rwenzori (the modern name for the Mountains of the Moon), on the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was pointed out to him by an African boy who thought the peaks were covered with salt.

My next serendipitous encounter must have been in H. W. Tilman's Snow on the Equator (1937), for when you are still too young to strike out on your own, the next best thing is to read of men who did. In the early 1930s, the taciturn British explorer and his mountaineering partner Eric Shipton ventured into the Rwenzori. His descriptionsā€”of “the nightmare landscape,” with its constant cold drizzle, tree-size flowers, leg-swallowing mud, jungle “made grotesque by waving beards of lichen hanging from every branch,” and elusive peaks hidden in roiling mistā€”gripped me like lust.

Then, in 1987, descending off Mount Kenya, I had an offhand conversation with a Kiwi who had just been to the fabled Rwenzori: “Times in there we was walkin' on roots suspended ten feet 'bove the ground like they was the backs of snakes,” he said. “You can't imagine it.”

But I could.

The trigger came in 2003, on the London Tube: I stumbled on a story in The Guardian about University College London geographer Richard Taylor, who, during a recent scientific expedition into Rwenzori Mountains National Park, discovered that, due to global warming, the glaciers were rapidly melting.

I had to go now, before my dreamland disappeared.

I GOT IN TOUCH with Nelson Kisaka, 31, the Kampala-based president of the Mountain Club of Uganda (MCU). Nelson said that the mountain club, much like the country itself, had been through difficult times but is in the process of rebuilding. Over e-mail, he invited me to mount a climbing expedition with the club into the peaks of the Rwenzori.

The MCU was founded in the geography department of Kampala's Makerere University in 1946. Early membersā€”the vast majority of them Europeans living in Ugandaā€”conducted numerous mountaineering and scientific expeditions to the Rwenzori. Between 1948 and 1962, the year Uganda gained independence from Britain, the MCU built a circuit of six huts, published several guidebooks, and began introducing rock and ice climbing to a fledgling nation.

But when Idi Amin came to power in 1971, all semblance of civil life vanished in Uganda. Preternaturally homicidal, Amin overthrew Prime Minister Apollo Milton Obote and then spent the next eight years executing some 300,000 civilians before being ousted by the army of Tanzania in 1979. Milton Obote returned to power in 1980 and ruled for another five bloody years, until former defense minister Yoweri Museveni's rebel army captured the capital of Kampala in January 1986 and installed Museveni as president. A benevolent yet autocratic leader, Museveni has instituted national elections (he was re-elected in 1996 and 2001) and rebuilt Uganda's economy on privatization, foreign investment, and coffee exports.

Though better developed and more politically stable than many African nations, Uganda today shares some of the same problems as its neighbors. Since 1982, AIDS has killed a million Ugandans, and Museveni's government faces several rebel insurgencies in the north, as well as sporadic fighting along the western border with the Congo. In the mid-nineties, guerrillas fighting in the Congo began using the Rwenzori as a redoubt, prompting the Ugandan government to close Rwenzori Mountains National Park in July 1997 and send in the military. The Western world heard almost nothing of this conflict until March 1999, when Congolese insurgents slaughtered eight Western tourists and a Ugandan warden in Bwindi National Park, Uganda's popular gorilla sanctuary, 100 miles south of the Rwenzori.

Trail by trail, the rebels were killed or driven out of the park, and in July 2001 Rwenzori Mountains National Park reopened. Since then, the country's tourism industry has tripled, with more than 100,000 travelers visiting the nation's ten game parks in 2003.

Yet adventure sports are luxury activities that germinate only in relatively stable conditions. After a long hiatus, the Mountain Club of Uganda has no climbing gear, and of the 300 affiliated members, only 18 are currently activeā€”and only a handful of those are experienced at altitude. (Most of the 300 members are Ugandans, but more than half of the active climbers are expats.) Because our expedition would be the club's first major ascent since the early days, Nelson e-mailed to ask if I might teach basic mountaineering skills.

For this I would need a partner, and I had just the man in mind: Steve Roach, 44, a mission programmer for NASA, computer science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, and solid mountaineer. Steve is unflappable, wry, and up for anythingā€”he once drove a school bus loaded with used computers to Guatemala, giving them to a school. Before I explained what my dream trip was all about, Steve said, “I'm going.” The two of us arrived in Kampala with bulging duffel bags of equipmentā€”donations of clothing, gear, and ropes from fellow climbers, as well as new tents from Mountain Hardwearā€”for the Mountain Club of Uganda.

FIVE DAYS OUT from Kampala, we cross the Bujuku River in Rwenzori Mountains National Park, hopping from one ice-fringed boulder to the next. We pull ourselves up through a stunted, moss- webbed forest to gain the lower Bigo Bog, a narrow defile between two walls of dark, wet granite. Beneath the floating hummocks of frost-glazed sedge lies a lake of mud.

In addition to our Ugandan trekking guide, Joel Nzwenge, 34, an armed national-park ranger, and 18 Ugandan porters, our team consists of Steve, me, Nelson Kisaka, and six other members of the Mountain Club of Uganda. The demographics of our group resemble those of the present-day MCU: Of the seven members, only Nelson and 26-year-old electrical engineer Eric Mugerwa are Ugandan. The rest are expats: Kenyan Ngoki Muhoho, 40, who owns her own management consulting business; Greg Smith, 24, a British economist for Uganda's Ministry of Finance; Mike Barnett, 59, an Australian project engineer in Kampala; and two Yanksā€”Glenda Siegrist, 42, nurse for the U.S. embassy in Kampala, and her husband, Loren Hostetter, 43, an agricultural development consultant for USAID. Greg and Loren have mountaineering experience; the rest are enthusiastic novices.

It has been raining for days. Two nights ago, at the Nyabitaba hut, it was pouring so violently, the tin roof was shrieking. But when I asked Joel how the weather would affect the alpine moorlands, he said, flatly, “It is not raining.” He wasn't joking. To the Bakonjoā€”the people who live in the foothills of the Rwenzori and farm cassava, bananas, beans, and coffeeā€”it is raining only when the air is so full of water you literally can't breathe and must stay indoors.

Above the lower Bigo Bog lies the upper Bigo Bog, at 12,000 feet. When Rwenzori Mountains National Park was declared a World Heritage Site by the UN in 1994, a boardwalk was built across this swamp. Dilapidated now, yet still largely above water, it allows us to chug across the quagmire like engines on a narrow-gauge railroad, entering a landscape I have imagined since childhood.

A forest of hypertrophic plants surrounds usā€”giant groundsel and giant lobelia and giant heather. The giant groundsels, 25 feet tall, with their enormous, artichoke-like balls atop their furred branches, resemble Joshua trees. The giant lobelias, purplish spires of hair, stand like solemn, bearded trolls; giant heathers hover to either side like plants that have morphed into enormous mammals. It is like Little Shop of Horrors. At any moment I expect a giant groundsel to reach out and grab me, or a three-foot rosette to spread its labial leaves and speak.

This surreal terrain, as much as the summits themselves, is what drew me to the Rwenzori, and I'm in no hurry to leave. Still, it takes us only two more days to reach our alpine high camp, the Elena hut, at 14,900 feet.

That night, before our dawn attempt on Margherita, the highest summit of 16,763-foot Mount Stanley, we're all zipped up in our bags on the blackened hut floor. Due to altitude sickness, Eric, Ngoki, and Nelson will stay in the hut while the six of us make the final push.

“We should split into two roped teams,” whispers Steve. “You, Loren, and Greg. Me, Glenda, and Mike. How far did you recon today?”

“To the Stanley Plateau, I think,” I say.

“Couldn't see the peaks?” chuckles Steve. The fog, sleet drizzle, and flurries of snow have been so incessant that we haven't even laid eyes on the summits yet. We are climbing in the summer dry season, but the Rwenzori gets eight feet of precipitation a year.

The next morning we set off into an ocean of fog, as usual. Following cairns up recently deglaciated granite slabs, we reach the steep nose of the Elena Glacier, where our two teams separate.

“See you on top,” I yell to Steve, a blue ghost in the pearly opacity.

“I doubt it.”

Loren, Greg, and I make short work of the Stanley Plateauā€”a flat, diminishing ice capā€”then cut northeast across a rock ridge to gain the Margherita Glacier. Although it is heavily crevassed, meltwater has filled in the cracks. A generation ago we would have been able to climb ice all the way to the top. Today the peak is a shattered helmet of dripping rock.

We summit before noon, eat lunch in swirling clouds, then descend to the base of the rock to find Steve's team arriving. Some swift belaying and Steve, Glenda, and Mike top out.

We're all grinning ear to ear as we crampon back down the glaciers together. At the hut, Mike confides that he's been dreaming of climbing the Rwenzori for the last 30 years. Dreams are contagious, and dreamers sometimes, serendipitously, find each other.

ONCE YOU'VE SPENT the time, money, and emotional energy to get yourself to that place you've fantasized about for decades, there's no sense in not having a good look around. So when the MCU climbers descend the next day, Steve and I stay on at the Elena hut. We have a detour in mind.

During the Mountain Club of Uganda's peak years, its most dedicated member was H. A. Osmaston, who wrote Guide to the Ruwenzori: The Mountains of the Moon in 1972. I'd obtained a photocopy, read it carefully, and made e-mail contact with Osmaston, now 84 and living in Cumbria, in northern England. In my note I suggested that there appeared to be ample room for a new route on the west face of Mount Stanley.

He responded: “I think all you say is correct. The rock should be clean of moss as it is so steep. But it is entirely in the Congo. A bullet-proof jacket would be an important addition to your kit. I don't advise it.”

According to Osmaston, the last documented ascent of the west face of Margherita was in 1956. No one really knew whether Congolese guerrillas were still using the western slope of the range as a hideout, but after talking to our portersā€”many of whom live in the high villages of the Rwenzoriā€”I reasoned that if they were, they probably wouldn't bother climbing to 16,000 feet.

“I say we go have a look,” I propose.

“I say we might get ourselves killed,” replies Steve, which doesn't mean he doesn't want to go.

From Osmaston's guide, it appeared that no one had made a complete traverse of the Stanley Plateau. There was once a cabin, the Moraine hut, down on the Congo side, but Osmaston didn't know if it still existed. We figure we'll shoot for this hut, get a peek of the west face if we're lucky, and go from there.

An alpine start is requisite, but it is snowing hard the next morning. We scootch down in our bags and dream on. By nine it is snowing only lightly.

“If we're gonna go,” says Steve, heaving on his pack, “let's go.”

We retrace our steps up the Stanley Plateau, then veer left toward the pass. By chance, a hole opens in the clouds and we spot what we think is a tiny hut, then the gap closes. We cross the invisible border and descend the western Stanley Glacier until it disappears, forcing us to rappel down rock ravines. We're in the Congo now.

As the mist momentarily clears, we again spy the hut on the ridgelineā€”and two people standing beside it. Uh-oh. I stare through the wisps of white with all my might, trying to determine whether they are armed.

“Are they moving?” Steve's voice is a wee bit higher than normal.

“No. They're not moving.”

The mist rolls in, the guerrillas disappear, and we keep on for a closer look. We are approaching like cats now, silent, shoulders tensed, creeping low to the ground through the boulders. The mist blows off again.

“They haven't moved,” I whisper.

Steve bursts out laughing so loud I jump. “Nope. They sure haven't. Might be because one's a cairn and the other one's a giant groundsel.”

No reason now not to go for it.

When we reach it, the hut is empty but still in solid condition. We eat lunch inside with the door open for the little we can make out of the west face of Mount Stanley. The peak, 2,500 feet above, is engulfed in dark-bellied clouds. The glaciers, the icefalls, the three summitsā€”we can see none of it. So what's new?

Steve strikes out up the face first, and I follow, both of us scrambling along steep, verglased granite. Gaining what we presume is the Alexandra Glacier, we rope up and simul-climb for the next three hours, occasionally sinking an ice screw. The ice is 50 or 60 degrees, and we can never see more than 100 feet above us, so we don't know where we're going, other than straight up. It sounds more daring than it is. When you're climbing properly, you're in the moment, working only with the world right at the end of your hands and feetā€”like a potter or a sculptor or a gymnast.

The last two pitches are a gothic castle of iceā€”turrets, moats, curtained walls, tenuous drawbridges. We are utterly, thankfully, alone. Everything above us and everything below us is lost in nubilated white gauze, as if this castle were suspended in the sky.

Standing beside the summit signpost, we have no view whatsoever. No hazy sea of green down in the Congo. No surrounding ridges or arĆŖtes. No falling valleys. But that is fine. We can imagine it without even trying.

WHEN YOU FINALLY go to a place you have fictionalized for years, you know that the illusion you have so carefully constructed will vanish forever, as all dreams do when you wake up. You make it real and then it all too quickly becomes a memory. Which would be heartbreaking if, before you got home, you didn't discover that you had somehow slipped your smooth stone into another person's pocket.

We had a grand pizza party at an upscale Italian restaurant in Kampala following the expedition. The whole team was there, along with aspiring members of the MCU, young Ugandans yearning to explore the mountains. They listened to our stories of the Rwenzori, then started planning their own expedition.

The Mountain Club of Uganda is back.

The post Making It Real appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

Of course they do—they get to trek with camels. But you can, too! We’ve got the COOLEST TRIPS, TOP TEN TRENDS, EXPERT ADVICE, AND BEST NEW PLACES TO GET LOST IN 2003. So what are you waiting for? Giddyup!




Let the Pros Be Your Guides




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Say Hello to the Wild Life




The Next Best Thing to Actually Living There




Go the Extra Green Mile




Take the Multisport Approach




No Whining Allowed




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Water is the Best Element




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What’s Up in the World’s Danger Zones

Star Power

Let the pros be your guides

BIKING THE TOUR DE FRANCE [FRANCE]
What’s better than watching this year’s 100th anniversary of the Tour de France? Riding it, just hours ahead of the peloton. You’ll pave the way for a certain Texan vying for his fifth straight victory, pedaling 10- to 80-mile sections of the race route through villages packed with expectant fans, and over some of the toughest mountain stages in the Pyrenees and Alps. At day’s end, ditch your bike for luxury digs in villages like Taillores, on Lake Annecy, and the Basque hamlet of St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port. OUTFITTER: Trek Travel, 866-464-8735, . WHEN TO GO: July. PRICE: $3,575. DIFFICULTY: moderate to strenuous.

MOUNT EVEREST ANNIVERSARY TREK [NEPAL]
This May, commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s historic climb to the summit of Everest by spending more than a month trekking and mountaineering in Nepal. Starting in Tumlingtar, you’ll hike beneath Himalayan giants like 27,824-foot Makalu, and strap on crampons to climb the 20,000-foot East and West Cols, and cross 19,008-foot Amphu Laptsa pass into the Everest region. At trek’s end in Thyangboche, Hillary’s son, Peter, will preside over a ceremonial banquet, while the man himself (now 83) will join in by sat phone from Kathmandu. OUTFITTER: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, . WHEN TO GO: April-June. PRICE: $3,690. DIFFICULTY: strenuous. CRUISING THE SEA OF CORTEZ [MEXICO]
To celebrate 25 years in the adventure business, Wilderness Travel has called on Ÿber-mountaineer Reinhold Messner and Amazon explorer Joe Kane to headline a weeklong cruise in the Sea of Cortez. When you’re not on the shallow-draft, 70-passenger Sea Bird, you’ll snorkel with naturalists as they track sea lions off Isla Los Islotes and spot gray whales in Bah’a Magdalena. Sea-kayak around uninhabited islands and hike desert arroyos, then spend evenings swapping expedition tales with Messner and Kane. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, . WHEN TO GO: March. PRICE: $4,595. DIFFICULTY: easy.

CYCLING THROUGH THE TUSCAN VINYARDS [ITALY]
Might want to add another front chainring to your bike before embarking on this hard-charging eight-day affair in Toscana, birthplace of cycle touring. Thanks to the expertise of former Giro d’Italia winner Andy Hampsten, this 400-mile route is designed for riders who are as serious about their Brunello as they are about their hills. From coastal Maremma, you’ll pedal little-trafficked backroads past farmhouses and monasteries, resting your climbing legs and dining like a Medici at wine estates and 12th-century hamlets. Four nights will be spent at a vineyard for a thorough indoctrination in winemaking (and tasting). OUTFITTER: Cinghiale Tours, 206-524-6010, . WHEN TO GO: September. PRICE: $3,000. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

KAYAKING THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER [USA]
Drop into Craten’s Hole with freestyle-kayaking phenom Ben Selznick. Bozeman local and winner of the Gallatin Rodeo 2002, Selznick is your guide on a seven-day tour of Montana’s most famous whitewater. After warming up on the Gallatin River’s Class II-III waves, you’ll graduate to the steep creeks off the Yellowstone, ranging from Class II to V. At night, ease your sore shoulders poolside and fireside at the Chico Hot Springs and Rock Creek resorts. OUTFITTER: GowithaPro, 415-383-3907, . WHEN TO GO: July. PRICE: $4,500. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Far Out

Get lost in the back of beyond

Big wig: a Papuan prepares for a tribal dance

SHAGGY RIDGE TREK [PAPUA NEW GUINEA]
If you were to drop off the face of the earth, you’d probably land in Papua New Guinea’s steamy Finisterre Mountains. Rising 13,000 feet out of the sweltering lowlands, the mountains’ flanks are choked in jungle thicket that few have ever fully explored—not even the locals. Be among the first. Hike and camp for seven days on tangled game trails and World War II supply routes to Shaggy Ridge, an airy fin of rock 4,900 feet above the Bismarck Sea. Be prepared to answer a barrage of questions from Papuan villagers who rarely, if ever, see outsiders. OUTFITTER: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, . WHEN TO GO: August, September. PRICE: $2,150. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

THE ULTIMATE FLY-FISING ADVENTURE [MONGOLIA]
You’ve got much more than a fish on when you’ve nabbed a taimen, a specimen that regularly grows to five feet long and dines on prairie dogs and ducks. If you’re not up for hunting the world’s largest salmonid for a full week on the Bator River, you can cast for lenok, the brown trout of Mongolia; ride horses or mountain bikes; or just enjoy the good life in your ger, a woodstove-heated yurt with two beds and electricity. Outfitter: Sweetwater Travel Company, 406-222-0624, . When to go: May-June, August-October. Price: $5,200. Difficulty: easy.

RAFTING THE FIRTH RIVER [CANADA]
Caribou know no boundaries. Every June, the 150,000-strong Porcupine herd leaves the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and migrates into the Yukon’s roadless Ivvavik National Park. And because the Class II-IV Firth bisects the park, you’ll be awestruck when thousands cross the river in plain view. Other big game are afoot, too—musk ox, barren land grizzlies, and wolves—and in such high concentrations that the region is often referred to as North America’s Serengeti. With long Arctic days and three- to four-hour river sessions daily, you’ll have plenty of time on this 12-day trip to hike the gently sloping 6,000-foot Brooks Range and fish for arctic char. Outfitter: Rivers, Oceans, and Mountains, 877-271-7626, . When to Go: June. Price: $3,995. Difficulty: moderate.

RIO NEGRO & AMAZON ADVENTURE [BRAZIL]
The upper Rio Negro is your portal back in time on this 11-day adventure that plumbs the deepest, darkest corners of the Amazon Basin. From the former Jesuit outpost of Santa Isabel, you’ll motorboat on the Negro’s blackened waters through virgin rainforest, camping alongside Tucanos Indian settlements stuck in a 19th-century time warp. Off the water, you’ll trek with native Brazilian guides into the rugged tepuis (3,000-foot plateaus), prowling for medicinal herbs used by local shamans. Resist the urge to swim: Football-size piranha call the Rio Negro home. OUTFITTER: Inti Travel and Tours, 403-760-3565, . WHEN TO GO: year-round. PRICE: $2,750. DIFFICULTY: easy.

RUNNING THE KATUN RIVER [RUSSIA]
If you’re looking for bragging rights to a truly remote river, consider the glacier-fed Katun. This 90-mile stretch of whitewater drains from the southern slopes of the 13,000-foot Altai Range, dropping fast through alpine tundra, 300-foot granite canyons, and continuous sets of Class III-IV pool-drop rapids. After a long river day, your evening entertainment at camp consists of traditional Russian dancing and a steamy riverfront bana (sauna). Outfitter: Bio Bio Expeditions, 800-246-7238, . When to Go: July. Price: $2,800. Difficulty: moderate.

COAST TO COAST IN BALBOA’S FOOTSTEPS [PANAMA]
Cross a continent in less than two weeks? Improbable but true when you retrace the route 16th-century conquistador Vasco NĆŗƱez de Balboa used to transport riches across the Isthmus of Panama. Five days of hiking, from the Caribbean village of Armila through the Darien Biosphere Reserve, take you to the Chucunaque River, where you’ll board dugout canoes and navigate a maze of flatwater channels past Ember‡ Indian settlements. Four days later, you’ll find yourself on the other side: a wide stretch of beach where Balboa “discovered” the Pacific in 1513. OUTFITTER: Destination by Design, 866-392-7865, . WHEN TO GO: May, December. PRICE: $3,290. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Close Encounters

Say hello to the wild life

A scarlet macaw perched in the rainforests of Belize

EXPLORING REEF AND RAINFOREST [BELIZE]
Mingle with everything from crocs and tapirs to jabiru storks and hawksbill turtles on this eight-day whirl through Belize. After three days on the mainland, gawking at toucans and parrots at the Crooked Tree Bird Sanctuary and dodging howler monkeys at the Mayan ruins of Lamanai, you’ll be whisked 55 miles offshore to a tented base camp on undeveloped Lighthouse Reef. Spend your days snorkeling, kayaking, and scuba diving within more than 70 square miles of pristine reefs. OUTFITTER: Island Expeditions, 800-667-1630, . WHEN TO GO: December- May. PRICE: $1,929. DIFFICULTY: moderate. WALKING WITH BUSHMEN [BOTSWANA]
See the backcountry of Botswana and all its attendant wildlife—with a twist. On this nine-day safari, you’ll tag along with Bushmen on their daily hunting-and-gathering forays (while still bedding down in luxe lodges and camps). Following the lion-cheetah-leopard-elephant-giraffe-zebra spectacle in the Okavango Delta, you’ll head north for a night to stay in the River Bushmen’s new camp, where you’ll search for medicinal plants or hunt with bow and arrow. Farther south, in the arid Central Kalahari Game Reserve, San Bushmen will show you how they survive on roots and prickly pears. OUTFITTER: Africa ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Company, 800-882-9453, . WHEN TO GO: April-November. PRICE: $1,925-$2,595. DIFFICULTY: easy.

SWIMMING WITH HUMPBACK WHALES [TONGA]
It’s been said that life is never the same after you’ve looked into the eye of a whale. Here’s how to find out: Every year between June and October, hundreds of humpbacks congregate in and around the turquoise waters of Vava’u, a group of 40 islands in northern Tonga, in the South Pacific. For seven days, you’ll bunk down in Neiafu at night, and by day slide into the water and float quietly while mammals the size of semis check you out. OUTFITTER: Whale Swim ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs, 503-699-5869, . WHEN TO GO: August- October. PRICE: $1,180. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Immersion Therapy

The next best thing to actually living there

REMOTE HILL TRIBE TREK [VIETNAM]
Despite the boom in adventure tourism in Vietnam, few travelers venture into the far-northern hill country, some 200 miles north of Hanoi. You should. Following overgrown buffalo paths and ancient Chinese trading trails, you’ll hike steep terrain for 120 miles over 11 days, traveling north from Cao Bang and staying with Nung villagers in huts on stilts. Save some film for Ban Gioc Falls, on the border with China, and Pac Bo Cave, Ho Chi Minh’s legendary hideout. Outfitter: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, . When to go: October-March. Price: $1,490. Difficulty: moderate.

TREKKING THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS [MOROCCO]
The M’goun Gorge is so narrow in places, you can’t see the sky—let alone the craggy summits of the nearby 12,000-foot Atlas Mountains. But they’re never out of sight for long on this ten-day trip through small Berber burgs in Morocco’s most fabled range. Over four days of hiking, you’ll climb Tizi n’ AĆÆImi, a 9,528-foot pass, and sleep in Berber farmhouses en route to the Valley of AĆÆBou Guemez, a rare oasis where you’re welcomed as family. OUTFITTER: Living Morocco, 212-877-1417, WHEN TO GO: May. PRICE: $2,950-$3,050. DIFFICULTY: easy.

BARACOA-GUANTƁNAMO CYCLE TOUR [CUBA]
Ride beneath the radar on this Canadian outfitter’s weeklong, 300-mile bike tour of Cuba’s northern coast, past black-sand beaches and nature reserves. The towns en route—Mayar’, a village immortalized by Cuban crooner Compay Segundo, and lush Baracoa—see few tourists and fewer cyclists, so you’ll have La Farola, a winding mountain pass known as “Cuba’s roller coaster,” all to yourself. Use caution when hydrating: Rum’s cheaper than water. OUTFITTER: MacQueen’s Island Tours, 800-969-2822, . WHEN TO GO: April, December. PRICE: $2,595, including round-trip airfare from Toronto. DIFFICULTY: moderate to strenuous.

SNOWSHOEING THE RHODOPE MOUNTAINS [BULGARIA]
Haven’t heard of the Rhodopes? No surprise. Obscurity has helped keep these 7,000-foot peaks in southern Bulgaria among the least visited in Europe. You’ll spend four to seven hours a day snowshoeing along ancient footpaths, through deep drifts and pine forests, to the slopes of Mount Cherni Vruh. Medieval monasteries and village guesthouses provide shelter on this eight-day trip, and Bulgarian perks include homemade sirine (a local feta cheese) and chance sightings of the Asiatic jackal. Outfitter: Exodus, 866-732-5885, . When to Go: February, December. Price: $775. Difficulty: moderate.

It’s Only Natural

Go the extra green mile

RAFTING THROUGH THE RƍO PLƁTANO BIOSPHERE RESERVE [HONDURAS]
Hail the monkey god on this 12-day rafting expedition through the R’o Pl‡tano Biosphere Reserve in eastern Honduras, a primordial jungle where more than 100 archaeological sites are covered with petroglyphs of the primate deity. On the R’o Pl‡tano, you’ll run Class III-IV rapids and float through serene limestone grottos, encountering en route the full Animal Planet menagerie of macaws, tapirs, spider monkeys, anteaters, and, with any luck, jaguars. At trip’s end, you’ll “hot dance” in a Garifuna Indian village. OUTFITTER: La Moskitia Ecoaventuras, 011-504-441-0839, . WHEN TO GO: December-August. PRICE: $1,430-$1,765. DIFFICULTY: moderate. DOCUMENTING RARE RAINFOREST PLANTS [CAMEROON]
Thanks to 4,000 resident species of plants, Cameroon’s 6,500-foot Backossi Mountains are a horticulturalist’s dream. Join scientists from England’s Royal Botanic Gardens and Bantu guides for 13 days to help inventory rare forest flora such as endangered orchids, edible fruits, and a new species of bird’s-nest fern. You’ll camp in a nearby village or bunk in a community hall and learn to prepare local fare, including plantains, fu-fu corn, and cassava. OUTFITTER: Earthwatch Expeditions, 800-776-0188, . WHEN TO GO: March-May, October-November. PRICE: $1,295. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

EXPLORING NAM HA [LAOS]
The Lao equivalent of a national park, the 858-square-mile Nam Ha National Biodiversity and Conservation Area in northwestern Laos offers some of Southeast Asia’s wildest rafting and trekking. Spend ten days paddling Class III whitewater on both the Nam Ha and Nam Tha rivers, sleeping in villages and bamboo-and-thatch bungalows at the Boat Landing Ecolodge, and trekking with local guides deep into the jungle, on the lookout for tailless fruit bats and Asiatic black bears. OUTFITTER: AquaTerra Ventures, 011-61-8-9494-1616, . WHEN TO GO: June-January. PRICE: $1,150. DIFFICULTY: easy to moderate.

ECO-TRAIL SAFARI IN KRUGER NATIONAL PARK [SOUTH AFRICA]
Go trekking with rangers on the newly designated Lebombo Eco-Trail, which runs for more than 300 miles along the previously off-limits eastern border of South Africa’s Kruger National Park and Mozambique. You might encounter rhinos, zebras, and even the lowly dung beetle in Africa’s most biodiverse park. You’ll also trek into nearby 200-million-year-old Blyde River Canyon and stalk lions on a walking safari. OUTFITTER: Sierra Club, 415-977-5522, . WHEN TO GO: September-October. PRICE: $3,695-$3,995. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Variety Packs

Take the multisport approach

Skiing the extra mile: Norway’s version of the Alps

CROSSING THE PATAGONIAN ANDES [CHILE AND ARGENTINA]
The Edenic RĆ­o Manso Valley, at the southern tip of South America, is pure Patagonia—high, open country surrounded by ancient alerce forests (think redwoods) and populated by gauchos and trout. How you choose to play on this nine-day camping trip—rafting the Manso’s Class IV-V rapids, casting for rainbows, or horseback riding along the riverfront trail—is up to you as you venture west from the altiplano of Bariloche toward the chiseled fjords of coastal Chile. OUTFITTER: ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Tours Argentina Chile, 866-270-5186, . WHEN TO GO: December-March. PRICE: $2,900. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

MUSHING WITH THE GREAT WHITE BEAR [NORWAY]
You take the reins on this 12-day dogsledding sojourn across the frozen island of Spitsbergen, Norway, 600 miles from the North Pole. When the huskies are resting, keep busy by snowshoeing amid gargantuan icebergs, cross-country skiing over glaciers, and spelunking blue-green ice caves. Defrost at night in a lodge made of sealskin and driftwood, expedition-style tents (you’ll be snug beneath reindeer-fur blankets), and a Russian ship intentionally frozen into the pack ice. Your only neighbors will be the island’s 4,000 polar bears (in case of emergency, your guide’s got the gun). OUTFITTER: Outer Edge Expeditions, 800-322-5235, . WHEN TO GO: March-April. PRICE: $3,990. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

POST ECO-CHALLENGE MULTISPORT [FIJI]
The professional adventure racers have gone home, so now you can spill your own sweat on the 2002 Eco-Challenge course. This new ten-day trip gives you access to some truly wild, made-for-TV terrain: mazy jungle trails, precipitous singletrack, and idyllic beaches. After sea-kayaking two days to the island of Malake, where spearfishermen bring up walu for dinner on a single breath of air, you’ll mountain-bike 25 miles over rugged terrain from the village of Ba to Navilawa. Next up is a two-day trek through lowland rainforests to the summit of 3,585-foot Mount Batilamu, followed by Class II-III rafting on the Navua River, from the coral coast to the interior village of Wainindiro. After all this, you’ve earned two days of beachfront R&R on the little-visited island of Kadavu. OUTFITTER: Outdoor Travel ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs, 877-682-5433, . WHEN TO GO: May-October. PRICE: $1,999. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Take It to the Top

No whining allowed

The frozen zone: Argentina’s Perito Moreno Glacier

CONTINENTAL ICE CAP TRAVERSE [ARGENTINA]
Patagonia’s 8,400-square-mile slab of ice wasn’t even explored until the 1960s, when British explorer Eric Shipton crossed it first. Starting in El Calafate, on the shore of Lago Argentino, this arduous 16-day backpacking/ski-mountaineering trip cuts through Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, where you’ll cross rivers and crevasses, ascend 4,830 feet to Marconi Pass, do time on ropes, crampons, and skis, and set up glacial camps along the spine of the Fitz Roy Range. The payoff? A wilderness fix on the gnarliest mass of ice and granite this side of the South Pole. OUTFITTER: Southwind ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs, 800-377-9463, . WHEN TO GO: November-March. PRICE: $3,395. DIFFICULTY: strenuous. SURFING EPIC WAVES [THE MALDIVES]
Board where few have surfed before: off the Indian Ocean’s remote Huvadhoo Atoll, site of several world-class breaks. Huvadhoo is a two-day voyage on a dhoni, a 60-foot, five-cabin, live-aboard wooden yacht, from the capital, Male; along the way, cast off the deck for tuna, marlin, and bonito. Once at the Huvadhoo, be ready for eight-foot-plus waves, especially near the atoll’s largest island, Fiyori, where there’s a fast (and dangerous) right break. OUTFITTER: Voyages Maldives, 011-960-32-3617, . WHEN TO GO: April-September. PRICE: $85 per day (typically a 7-, 10-, or 14-day tour). DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

RAFTING THE BRAHMAPUTRA RIVER [INDIA]
With 112 miles of Class III-V+ Himalayan runoff, the Brahmaputra, the lower portion of the legendary Tsangpo in Tibet, is one of the planet’s ultimate whitewater challenges. And a relatively new one at that—the first commercial rafting expedition was launched late last year. You’ll spend nine days blasting down emerald-green hydraulics (the Class V Breakfast Rapid is famous for flipping rafts), camping on sandy beaches, and passing through Namdapha National Park, home to one of Asia’s most varied tropical forests. OUTFITTER: Mercury Himalayan Explorations, 011-91-112-334-0033, . WHEN TO GO: November-February. PRICE: $3,300, including internal airfare. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

Get Wheel

Blazing new trails by mountain bike

Sandstone heaven: on the rocks in Cappadocia

RIDING THE RUGGED NORTHEAST [PORTUGAL]
A good set of knobbies and generous helpings of local beef and nightly port will help you tackle this eight-day inn-to-inn tour through Portugal’s wild northeast corner. Dodge cows on Roman pathways, follow craggy singletrack alongside the Douro River, and spin along trails once used by smugglers trafficking coffee beans to Spain. The grand finale is the wide-open wilderness of the remote Serra da Malcata—land of pine-topped peaks, wild boar, and little else. OUTFITTER: Saddle Skedaddle Tours, 011-44191-2651110, . WHEN TO GO: May-July. PRICE: $1,120. DIFFICULTY: strenuous. MOUNTAIN-BIKING CAPPADOCIA [TURKEY]
In our opinion, any trip that starts off with two nights in a traditional cave hotel has promise. See for yourself on this six-day, 180-mile ride through Cappadocia in central Turkey. Thank three-million-year-old volcanic eruptions for the otherworldly terrain: impossibly narrow sandstone spires (called fairy chimneys) and towns that plunge 20 floors underground. Happily, the riding is as varied as the views. You’ll pedal along dry riverbeds, slickrock, and narrow jeep tracks en route to each day’s destination—luxe campsites or charming village inns. OUTFITTER: KE ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Travel, 800-497-9675, . WHEN TO GO: May. PRICE: $1,695. Difficulty: strenuous.

SECRET SINGLETRACK [BOLIVIA]
It was only a matter of time before Bolivia’s ancient network of farm trails, winding from village to village high in the Andes, found a modern purpose: mountain biking. On this new 14-day singletrack tour through the Cordillera Real near La Paz, intermediate riders can rocket down 17,000-foot passes, contour around extinct volcanoes, and rack up an epic grand-total descent of 54,000 feet. Nights are spent camping at Lake Titicaca and in local pensions like the Hotel Gloria Urmiri, where natural hot springs await. OUTFITTER: Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking, 011-591-2-2313-849, . WHEN TO GO: May-September. PRICE: $1,750. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

COPPER CANYON EXPEDITION [MEXICO]
There’s lots to love about the 6,000-foot descent into Mexico’s Copper Canyon by bike—and gravity is only part of it. Get down in one piece and you’ll have a week’s worth of technical riding ahead of you in a canyon four times the size of Arizona’s Grand. Cool your toes on fast, fun river crossings near the village of Cerro Colorado, visit the indigenous Tarahumara, and bunk down in a restored hacienda built into the canyon walls. OUTFITTER: Worldtrek Expeditions, 800-795-1142, . WHEN TO GO: September-April. PRICE: $1,599. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

The Deep End

Water is the best element

SAILING ON THE ECLIPSE [PALAU]
Captain John McCready’s 48-foot Eclipse—outfitted with a compressor, dive tanks, sea kayaks, and rigs for trolling—is your one-stop adventure vessel for exploring this South Pacific archipelago. After picking up the sloop near the capital, Koror, give yourself at least six days to explore Palau’s protected lagoon in the Philippine Sea, dive along miles of coral walls, and kayak and hike some of the more than 200 limestone Rock Islands. By the time you reboard each evening, chef Charlie Wang will have your pan-seared wahoo waiting. OUTFITTER: Palau Sea Ventures, 011-680-488-1062, . WHEN TO GO: November-June. PRICE: $4,200 for the entire boat (which sleeps four passengers) for six days, including captain, dive master, and cook. DIFFICULTY: easy.

SEA-KAYAKING THE MASOALA PENINSULA [MADAGASCAR]
Once a refuge for pirates, Madagascar’s rugged northeast coast has been reborn as Parque Masoala, the country’s newest and largest national park. For nine days, you’ll explore the calm coastal waters by sea kayak, watching for humpback whales, snorkeling the coral reefs, spearfishing for barracuda, combing the shorelines of deserted islands, and sleeping in one of two rustic tented camps. Onshore, scout for lemurs in the rainforest with Malagasy guides. OUTFITTER: Kayak Africa, 011-27-21-783-1955, . WHEN TO GO: September-December. PRICE: $1,080. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

SNORKELING AND SEA-KAYAKING NINGALOO REEF [AUSTRALIA]
A virtually untouched alternative to the Great Barrier Reef, Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef is a 162-mile close-to-shore coral barrier protecting the white-sand beaches and high-plateau shrublands of Cape Range National Park from the Indian Ocean. Mellow two- to four-hour paddling days on this five-day romp up the coast are punctuated by snorkeling in 70- to 80-degree turquoise waters (never deeper than 13 feet), swimming with whale sharks just outside the reef, and hanging at the plush moving camp. OUTFITTER: Capricorn Kayak Tours, 011-618-9-433-3802, . WHEN TO GO: April-mid-October. PRICE: $450. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

KITESURFING SAFARI [BAHAMAS]
Steady winds, warm waters, and world-class instructors—essential ingredients for a perfect kitesurfing vacation—exist in plenitude among the numerous tiny islands off Abaco in the Bahamas. During this weeklong clinic, you’ll master board-off tricks and 360 jump turns, learn to sail upwind more proficiently, and critique videos of your kite moves over coconut-rum drinks at the seven-cottage Dolphin Beach Resort on Great Guana Cay. OUTFITTER: Kite Surf the Earth, 888-819-5483, . WHEN TO GO: mid-January-May. PRICE: $990, including airfare from Fort Lauderdale and all gear. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Future Classics

Our next thrilling episodes

Everest’s seldom-scene cousin: Tibet’s Kawa Karpo

CLIMBING MUZTAGH ATA, “FATHER OF ICE MOUNTAINS” [CHINA]
Already been to Everest Base Camp? Next time, head to Muztagh Ata, a raggedy 24,754-foot summit in the Karakoram Range in China’s Xinjiang province. The five-day trek (instead of yaks, you’ve got camels!) starts at 12,369 feet, climbing through grasslands and river valleys to Camp One at 17,388 feet—where not one but ten glaciers converge in a vast expanse of ice and snow. Outfitter: Wild China, 011-86-10-6403-9737, . When to go: September- October. Price: $2,710. Difficulty: strenuous. PILGRIMAGE TO KAWA KARPO [TIBET]
Mount Kailash gets all the press—and all the Western trekkers. But this May, another sacred Buddhist route, the annual pilgrimage to Kawa Karpo, a 22,245-foot fang of snow and ice, will open to Western visitors. The 18-day camping trek climbs out of semitropical rainforest and Tibetan villages before circling the peak’s base. Snow leopards live here, too, but if you don’t catch a glimpse, at least you’ll leave with a lifetime’s supply of good karma. OUTFITTER: High Asia Exploratory Mountain Travel Company, 203-248-3003, . WHEN TO GO: May, July, October. PRICE: $3,800-$5,000. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

TREK THE VILCABAMBA [PERU]
Now that they’ve limited tourist permits on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, we’re left wondering, What else is there? How about a 17-day camping trek to Peru’s lost city of Victoria, a 600-year-old ruins discovered in 1999 and encircled by 19,000-foot peaks of the Cordillera Vilcabamba. You’ll log some 40 miles over ancient Incan walkways along the Tincochaca River, and then climb 15,000-foot Choquetecarpo Pass. Once at Victoria, you’ll have the excavated homes and ceremonial sites all to yourself. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, . WHEN TO GO: May-June. PRICE: $3,895. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

All-American

Remote trips right here at home

THE ALASKAN CLIMBER [ALASKA]
Many peaks in the Chugach Mountains of southeast Alaska remain unnamed and unclimbed. Your objectives are the 12,000-foot summits of Mount Valhalla and Mount Witherspoon, but even with a ski-plane flight into the range, you’ll still spend 20 days hauling, trekking, and climbing on this self-supported trip. Outfitter: KE ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Travel, 800-497-9675, . When to Go: April. Price: $2,895, including flights within Alaska. Difficulty: strenuous. DOGSLEDDING AND WINTER CAMPING [NORTHERN MINNESOTA]
Forget your leisurely visions of being whisked from campsite to campsite: Dogsledding is serious work. During four days in the wilderness bordering the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, you’ll learn how to handle your team of malamutes and brush up on winter camping techniques. Outfitter: The Northwest Passage, 800-732-7328, . When to Go: January-February. Price: $895. Difficulty: moderate.

RAFTING THE OWYHEE RIVER [NEVADA, IDAHO, AND OREGON]
This 17-day, 220-mile trip on the rarely rafted, Class II-IV Owyhee takes you down one of the longest and most remote stretches of runnable river in the Lower 48, through rugged canyon country. Need something shorter? Several sections can be run in four to seven days. Outfitter: River Odysseys West, 800-451-6034, . When to Go: May. Price: $3,735. Difficulty: moderate.

HALEAKALA CRATER SEA-TO-SUMMIT HIKING EXPEDITION [MAUI]
Go from sea level to 9,886 feet on this three-day trek from Maui’s sandy shores, through Hawaiian rainforests, to the moonlike floor of Haleakala Crater. You’ll climb 11 miles and 6,380 feet on the first day alone—good thing horses are hauling your gear. Outfitter: Summit Maui, 866-885-6064, . When to Go: year-round. Price: $1,190-$1,390. Difficulty: moderate.

GRAND GULCH TRAVERSE [UTAH]
What’s better than backpacking the 52-mile length of the Grand Gulch Primitive Area in southeastern Utah? Llama-trekking for much of the same seven-day route, past ancient Anasazi ruins and more recent historic landmarks—including Polly’s Island, where Butch Cassidy, some say, crossed the Gulch. Outfitter: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, . When to Go: April. Price: $2,590. Difficulty: moderate.

Elevator, Going Up

Three helicopter epics

MOUNTAIN-BIKING THE CELESTIAL MOUNTAINS [KAZAKHSTAN]
Just as your quads begin rebelling during this two-week, 300-mile traverse of the Tien Shan—the fabled 21,000-foot mountain range that separates Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from China—a midtrip bonanza brings relief: A Communist-era cargo helicopter will whisk you to the top of the 12,000-foot “hills” for two days of screaming singletrack and goat-trail descents. Outfitter: KE ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Travel, 800-497-9675, . When to Go: July-August. Price: $2,395. Difficulty: strenuous.

RAFTING IN THE HOOKER RANGE [NEW ZEALAND]
Rarely boated, the upper reaches of southwestern New Zealand’s Landsborough River and the nearby Waiatoto are so remote that the only way to the put-ins is by helicopter. You’ll spend seven days roaring down Class III and IV rapids on both rivers, fishing for brown trout, searching for keas (the world’s only alpine parrot), and camping under the gazes of 10,000-foot peaks Mount Deacon and Mount Aspiring. Outfitter: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, . When to Go: March, December. Price: $3,190. Difficulty: moderate.

SHOOTING THE COLUMBIA MOUNTAINS [BRITISH COLUMBIA]
Spend four days coptering from Adamant Lodge in the Selkirks to remote 10,000-foot hiking trails in the Columbia Mountains for a photography workshop with widely published outdoor lensmen Chris Pinchbeck and Paul Lazarski. After pointers on lens selection and composition, shoot sunrise-lit alpine meadows till your film runs out. Outfitter: Canadian Mountain Holidays, 800-661-0252, . When to Go: July. Price: $2,360. Difficulty: easy.

Most Likely to Succeed

Six new additions to the adventure travel map

SURFING THE WILD EAST [EL SALVADOR]
Though the civil war ended 11 years ago, it’s been difficult to access El Salvador’s remote eastern point breaks on your own. Now you can hook up for eight days with Punta Mango’s local guides to surf Los Flores, La Ventana, and other perfecto Pacific peelers. OUTFITTER: Punta Mango Surf Trips, 011-503-270-8915, . WHEN TO GO: year-round. PRICE: $394-$818. DIFFICULTY: moderate. EXPLORING ISLANDS AND VOLCANOES [NICARAGUA]
Once a war-torn dictatorship, Nicaragua is now drawing scads of expatriates to its safer shores. Hike and mountain-bike around belching 5,000-foot volcanoes on the Pacific side, and kayak, fish, and loll in natural hot springs on islands in Lake Nicaragua. OUTFITTER: Nicaragua ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs, 011-505-883-7161, . WHEN TO GO: November-September. PRICE: weeklong trips start at $600. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

RAFTING THE SOCA RIVER [SLOVENIA]
Spilling from the Julian Alps, the roiling Soca has long been a backyard destination for Europe’s whitewater intelligentsia. With improved infrastructure and an exchange rate favorable to Americans, now’s the time to hit this Class II-IV river. OUTFITTER: Exodus Travel, 800-692-5495, . WHEN TO GO: June-September. PRICE: eight-day trips, $715. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

BIKING AND BOATING THE DALMATIAN COAST [CROATIA]
Sail from island to island in the Adriatic Sea, stopping to cycle the nature reserves and medieval villages, safe again after a decade of political strife. OUTFITTER: Eurocycle, 011-43-1-405-3873-0, . WHEN TO GO: April-October. PRICE: eight-day cruise, $690-$740. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

MOUNTAIN-BIKING IN THE JUNGLE [SRI LANKA]
While the northeast is still volatile, don’t discount a southerly traverse of the island by mountain bike, through lush jungles and over cool mountain passes. OUTFITTER: ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs Lanka Sports, 011-94-179-1584, . WHEN TO GO: year-round. PRICE: 15-day trip, $985. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

TRACKING GORILLAS [GABON]
Onetime host to warring guerrillas but permanent home to the peaceful lowland gorillas, LopƩ-Okanda Wildlife Reserve is the jewel of Gabon, nearly 80 percent of which is unspoiled forest woodlands. OUTFITTER: Mountain Travel Sobek, 800-282-8747, . WHEN TO GO: February-March, August. PRICE: $6,490 (19 nights). DIFFICULTY: easy.

Cautionary Trails

What’s up in the danger zone

When it comes to foreign travel, how risky is too risky? It’s hard to know. But the best place to start researching is the U.S. State Department (). At press time,* these 25 countries were tagged with a Travel Warning advising against nonessential travel. Here’s the lowdown on what you’re missing—and just how dicey things really are.

RISK LEVEL:
1ĢżĢżĢżĢżGENERALLY SAFE
2ĢżĢżĢżĢżSIGNIFICANTLY RISKY
3ĢżĢżĢżĢżEXTREMELY RISKY

AFGHANISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Despite the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom, now in its 18th month, Taliban holdouts still lurk in a country once known for great hospitality (and hashish).
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Trekking in the Hindu Kush’s remote, red-cliffed Bamiyan Valley, where the Taliban destroyed two monumental fifth-century Buddhas carved into mountain rock
RISK: 3

ALGERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Terrorism in this oil-rich country has dropped off slightly in recent years, but there is still risk of sporadic attacks in rural areas and on roadways, especially at night.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Hiking in the El Kautara Gorges and the jagged Ahaggar Mountains, near the town of Tamanrasset
RISK: 2

ANGOLA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
An April 2002 cease-fire put a stop to the 25-year civil war, though millions of undetonated mines are still believed to litter the countryside.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Checking out Operation Noah’s Ark, an effort to relocate elephants and giraffes from Namibia and Botswana to the savannas of Quicama National Park in the northwest
RISK: 2

BOSNIA-HEREGOVINA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
The 1995 Dayton Accords ended the war between Muslim Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats, but UN troops remain to control localized outbursts of political violence, which are sometimes directed toward the international community.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Some of the best—and cheapest—alpine skiing in all of Europe at the Dinari Range’s 6,313-foot Mount Jahorina, site of the 1984 Winter Games
RISK: 1

BURUNDI
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Decades of ethnic strife between Hutus and Tutsis have killed hundreds of thousands. The resulting poverty and crime can make tourist travel dangerous in this small, mountainous nation.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Scuba diving in Lake Tanganyika, at 4,710 feet the world’s second-deepest lake (after Russia’s Baikal) and home to some 600 species of vertebrates and invertebrates
RISK: 2

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
After independence from France in 1960 and three decades under a military government, C.A.R. was turned over to civilian rule in 1993. Still, it remains beset with instability and unrest.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Bushwhacking and hiking with Pygmy guides through the rainforests of Dzanga-Ndoki, arguably the most pristine national park in Africa
RISK: 2

COLOMBIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Dubbed “Locombia” (the mad country) by the South American press, Colombia is rife with cocaine cartels, guerrilla warfare, and more kidnappings than any other nation in the world.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Encounters with the pre-Columbian Kogi people while trekking through dense jungle and the isolated 19,000-foot Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains
RISK: 3

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Though rich in diamonds, gold, and timber, this equatorial country is still in tatters—famine, millions of displaced refugees (since Mobutu’s despotic 32-year rule ended in 1997).
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Mountaineering in the Ruwenzori Mountains on 16,763-foot Mount Stanley, Africa’s third-highest peak
RISK: 3

INDONESIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Anti-Western terrorist attacks in Bali and separatist violence in West Timor, the province of Aceh, central and west Kalimantan, and Sulawesi have destabilized the world’s largest archipelago.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Surfing Sumatra’s legendary breaks off the island of Nias and jungle trekking in Gunung Leuser National Park
RISK: 2

IRAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Despite inclusion in Bush’s “axis of evil” and the U.S.’s suspension of diplomatic relations, Iran is generally safe—though travel to the Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq borders is best avoided.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Skiing in the 12,000-foot-plus Elburz Mountains, where the resort in Dizin receives more than 23 feet of snow annually and lift tickets cost $4 a day
RISK: 1

IRAQ
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Even if you wanted to go to Iraq, no U.S. commercial flights enter the country that’s ruled by the world’s most infamous dictator.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Canoeing the Marshes, the historic ecosystem at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers—birthplace over 10,000 years ago of the Mesopotamian civilization
RISK: 3

ISRAEL
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Israel has been a hotly contested geopolitical and religious crucible since 1948, but the two-and-a-half-year Palestinian intifada has produced more suicide bombings than any other period.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Scuba diving to the underwater ruins of Herod’s City at Caesarea, along the palm-fringed Mediterranean coast
RISK: 2

IVORY COAST
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Once the most stable West African country, this coffee-producing nation suffers from falling cocoa prices and clashes between Christians and Muslims.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Trekking through the virgin rainforests of TaĆÆ National Park, home to the threatened pygmy hippopotamus
RISK: 2

Be aware that the State Department also posts advisories about unstable regions in many other countries, like Kyrgyzstan and Nepal. Carefully check the Web site’s postings and consult with well-informed tour operators before finalizing any travel plans.
*This information is current as of January 14, 2003

Compiled by Misty Blakesley, Amy Marr, Dimity McDowell, Sam Moulton, Tim Neville, Katie Showalter, and Ted Stedman

Cautionary Trails, PT II

RISK LEVEL:
1 GENERALLY SAFE
2 SIGNIFICANTLY RISKY
3 EXTREMELY RISKY


JORDAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Jordan is considered the least dangerous Middle Eastern country; still, threats of random violence (witness the October 2002 killing of an American Embassy employee) remain high.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

World-renowned sport and trad climbing on the 1,500-foot sandstone walls in Wadi Rum, and camel-trekking with the Bedouin in the country’s southern desertscape
RISK: 1



LEBANON
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Home to the terrorist group Hezbollah, Lebanon has a history of anti-U.S. violence, and there have been recent protests, sometimes violent, in major cities.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Skiing the 8,000-foot-plus peaks and six resorts in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, then heading to the coast to swim in the Mediterranean
RISK: 2



LIBERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Though a democratic government took power in 1997, ending an eight-year civil war, this developing West African nation is plagued by clashes between government forces and dissidents.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Safaris to Sapo National Park, Liberia’s only national park and one of the last rainforest refuges for bongo antelopes and forest elephants
RISK: 2



LIBYA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Seventeen years under U.S. sanctions, convictions in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and rising crime make travel to Libya a tricky proposition.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Safaris to the Ubari Sand Sea, land of shifting, 300-foot dunes and salt lakes
RISK: 2



MACEDONIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

A geopolitical hot spot, this mountainous Balkan country is still smoldering with ethnic tension, most recently between Albanian rebels and Macedonian forces.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Spelunking among the dripstone formations and stalagmites in the caves around 3,000-foot-plus Matka Canyon
RISK: 1



NIGERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Though nearly 16 years of military rule ended in 1999, this oil-rich West African country suffers from rampant street crime, ongoing religious and ethnic conflicts, and kidnappings.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Trekking through rolling grasslands and exploring the volcanic 3,500-foot Mandara Mountains along the border with Cameroon
RISK: 2



PAKISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

In 2002, members of the Taliban, who had crossed the vertiginous Hindu Kush from Afghanistan, are believed to have instigated a rash of anti-Western terrorism in Islamabad and Karachi.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Completing the classic three-week trek to the base camp of pyramidal K2 in northern Pakistan, leaving from Askole and crossing the Baltoro Glacier
RISK: 2



TAJIKISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

A mountainous and unstable “stan” in the heart of Central Asia, Tajikistan is thought to be home to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) terrorist group.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Climbing untouched glaciers and rock faces in the Pamir Mountains, where first ascents of 17,000-foot-plus summits abound
RISK: 2



SOMALIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Ever since dictator Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, anarchy has ruled this drought-prone East African nation. Warring factions are still fighting for control of the the capital, Mogadishu.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Deep-sea tuna fishing in the waters off Somalia’s 1,876-mile coastline, the longest in Africa
RISK: 3



SUDAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Nearly 40 years of civil war, coupled with famine, have made Sudan extremely unstable, especially in the oil-producing Upper Nile region. Americans have been assaulted and taken hostage.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Scuba diving in the Red Sea to famous shipwrecks and coral atolls, first explored by Jacques Cousteau in the sixties
RISK: 3



VENEZUELA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Opposition to President Hugo ChƔvez and a nationwide strike have destabilized this tropical country, causing acute oil shortages and triggering violent protests in Caracas.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Trekking through humid jungles and the vast savannas of the Guiana Highlands to 3,212-foot Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world
RISK: 2



YEMEN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

This country on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula has been plagued by anti-American sentiment since long before the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Exploring the coral beaches of Socotra, the largest Arabian island, which abounds with flora, including frankincense, myrrh, and the dragon’s blood tree
RISK: 3



Be aware that the State Department also posts advisories about unstable regions in many other countries, like Kyrgyzstan and Nepal. Carefully check the Web site’s postings and consult with well-informed tour operators before finalizing any travel plans.

*This information is current as of January 14, 2003



Compiled by Misty Blakesley, Amy Marr, Dimity McDowell, Sam Moulton, Tim Neville, Katie Showalter, and Ted Stedman

The post Nomads Have More Fun appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

First, Let Yourself Go It's the adventure of a lifetime! You just have to share it with eight strangers. (Sigh.)

“Marsopa! Marsopa!” the deckhand cried, and we scrambled for our wetsuits and gear. We were three days into a ten-day live-aboard cruise south of the equator and still edgy and terminally polite with each other. Excusez-moi. Pardon. Eight guests from five different countries fumbling into scuba gear so that we could swim with the marsopas. What we saw when we hit the water was astonishing: about 30 bottle-nosed dolphins, some 500-pounders, some like sleek gray piglets, and all grinning and nodding enthusiastically in our face masks as if to say, “Yes! Yes! Weird, bubble-making, rubber-suited beings, come play with us! You we like!” Unlike when I'd met my fellow passengers, I took one look at the dolphins and thought, This is the fun-loving peer group I've been looking for ever since my high-school friends got lives.
I couldn't tear myself from the ceaselessly circling celebration until, after about 45 minutes, the dolphins lost interest and swam off. Suddenly alone, I kicked to the surface and saw the tiny, very distant dive boat motoring away. Yep, I thought, once again I'm screwed.

When it comes to group travel, it can seem at times that we're all screwed. You think about how you spent all this money and traveled all this way to get stuck with a bunch of tight-assed ophthalmologists' wives. And then you end up having sex with them. (Or don't, but wish you had.) Personally, I start out on a trip among strangers with my defenses up, prejudices blazing. But the more I travel, the more I hold out hope. And what I hope for is a little disaster, the one that breaks the iceā€”if it doesn't kill me first.

Sometimes it doesn't even have to be about me being the idiot. I wasn't the one who started the riot in the karaoke bar in Koror, nor did I cause the whole team to slide 500 feet down Mount Hood on their butts, practicing self-arrest techniques. I didn't call the Mayan shaman's grandmother “Fat Lady,” and it wasn't my navel ring the sea lion wanted to play with in that cavern in Baja. In each of these cases, somebody else stepped up and ate the humble pĆ¢Ć©, but each time, everyone in our group rallied around the misfortune. The important thing isn't who does it, or what they do, but that everybody is actually doing something, anything, out at the edge of their comfort zone. Then the moment of terror, beauty, or humor (or all three at once) makes friends of fellow travelers.

For example, my rescue from an uninhabited rock mere hours after running away to join the dolphin circus gave us all something to talk and joke about. And from that point on we eight became a team. No one got left behind as we surged onward, a small community stoking each other with laughter and wondermentā€”a fine peer group, after all, though I agree with the marsopa: We do look ridiculous in our rubber suits.

Best Trips of 2001: Island Escapes

Island Escapes

Mighty island: one of the El Nido chain north of Palawan Island, Philippines

You could limit yourself to standard island fare: beaches great for digging your feet into the sand, tiki torches, moonlight dips in aquamarine lagoons. Or you could seek out the delights found only on the choicest isles: whitewater rapids galore, verdant hiking trails winding through wolf territory, and mindblowing views of the northern lights.

The Philippines: Coral, Butterflies, and Sweat
Start with a seven-day whitewater-rafting descent of the boulder-choked Cagayan River, which churns down Luzon's Sierra Madre and through the island's last remaining rainforest. You may not be able to identify every one of the butterflies along the way (the Philippines have 895 species) because you'll be too busy paddling; this is, after all, only the second commercial trip down the steep and technical Class IV upper section of the Cagayan. Next, ditch the raft and embark on a four-day trek to the 2,000-foot-high, 2,000-year-old Banaue rice terraces before hopping into a sea kayak for four more days of paddling and snorkeling around the lush El Nido islands to see as many of the Philippines's 500 different corals as you can. Outfitter: Mukuni Wilderness Whitewater Expeditions When to Go: ¶Ł±š³¦±š³¾²ś±š°łā€“J²¹²Ō³Ü²¹°ł²ā Price: $2,950 Difficulty: Moderate ā€”Jason Daley

Get Marooned
Michigan: Backpacking Isle Royale National Park
The dense boreal forests of roadless Isle Royale, located 22 miles off Minnesota's easternmost tip in Lake Superior, put you in prime moose-viewing territory. Depending on your fitness level, guides choose between two seven-day, 45-mile island traverses: the mountainous Greenstone Ridge, which follows the island's backbone, or the precipitous Minong Trail on its north shore. At night, you'll watch the northern lights from camp and listen for the howls of the island's 29 wolves.Outfitter: The Northwest Passage When to Go: September Price: $925 Difficulty: Strenuous
Ireland: Mountain Biking the West Coast
There's only one proper way to experience rural southwestern Ireland's druidic pastā€”biking your way 30 to 65 miles a day for 14 days down coastal roadways and rough lanes on the Dingle Peninsula. You'll take detours over narrow sheep-clogged farm pathsin County Clare and cycle through the Irish mist to 2,200-year-old caves, ring forts, and mysterious stone dolmensā€”thought to be druid altars or gravestonesā€”and sleep in village hotels. It could well rain, but in Ireland, you have to take dark skies with a grain of salt. (A pint helps, too.) Outfitter: Classic ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs When to Go: “³³Ü±ō²āā€“A³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Ł Price: $2,990 Difficulty: Moderate

Scandinavia: Road Cycling the Southern Islands
You'll start each of this trip's 15 days with platters of Danish pastries, mounds of Swedish pancakes, and no fewer than 12 varieties of yogurt. After breakfast, the cycling will wake you from a carbohydrate stupor as you explore the islands and mainland coasts of eastern Denmark and southern Sweden, powering 25 to 30 miles a daypast the grassy dunes and sandy beaches of Denmark's Baltic coast to the harbor towns of AerĆø Island and the cool pine forests of Sweden's Lake District. And the best thing about a hard day's ride? Evenings spent lounging in the Swedish sauna. Outfitter: Euro-Bike and Walking Tours When to Go: “³³Ü²Ō±šā€“J³Ü±ō²ā Price: $3,900 Difficulty: Moderate
Indonesia: Tall-Ship Sailing the Bali and Flores Seas
It looks like a prop from The Princess Bride, but the century-old tall ship Adelaar is a prime sailing machine. It cruises east from Balifor 11 days and through the remote tropical archipelago Nusa Tenggara, detouring to let you snorkel the coral surrounding Rinca Island and deserted Banta Island in search of butterfly fish and Spanish dancers. On Komodo Island, you'll prowl the Komodo National Park with a guide to look for the nine-foot-long man-eating Komodo dragon. Outfitter: Wilderness Travel When to Go: “³³Ü±ō²āā€“A³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Ł, December Price: $3,200 Difficulty: Easy
Irian Jaya: Visiting Papua New Guinea's Stone Age Peoples
Irian Jaya, an Indonesian province comprising the Western half of the island of Papua New Guinea, is inhabited by hundreds of tribes who practice a way of life that dates back to the Stone Age. On this 14-day trip, you'll visit with the Dani people of the Baliem Valley and the Asmat of the southern coast and witness traditional ceremonies (such as the Bisj pole ceremony which commemorates dead warriors). You'll hike through lush mangrove forests and down sandy beaches as your native Irian guides point out the best parts of their homeland. Outfitter: Geographic Expeditions When to go: June, September Price: $5000 Difficulty: Strenuous
Prince Edward Island: Cycling Historic Canada
You'll start your 7-day cycling tour in the P.E.I. capital Charlottetown before moving down the road to Canada's Brackley Beach National Park. Then you'll pedal through rolling farmland on to the fishing village of Victoria, known for its light houses and blue heron colony. Besides magnificent seascapes, choice seafood, and a dose of island life, you'll learn much mire than you ever thought possible about the influences behind Anne of Green Gables, P.E.I.'s literary claim to fame. Outfitter: Classic ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs When to go: July Price: $1295 Difficulty: Moderate
Madagascar: Wildlife Safari
For millennia, Madagascar has been separated from mainland Africa, allowing an amazing array of unusual and interesting creatures to develop. On this 19-day trip, Allen Bechky, a world-renowned authority on safari and bush travel, will lead you into the rain forests of Perinet, the Coral Gardens of Isalo, the Spiny Forest of Ifaty, and the badland canyons of Isalo. You'll see some of the island's wildlife–indri, aye-aye, and sifaka to name a few–and gain a deep understanding of their place in one of the world's most unique ecosystems. Outfitter: Mountain Travel Sobek When to Go: April, May, June Price: $4750 Difficulty: Easy
Washington: Sea Kayaking the San Juan Islands
You'll start your six-day adventure on San Juan Island, one of more than 200 island in the San Juan archipelago. Paddling through forested islets, you'll be in the prime location to spot some of the more than 80 orca whales who call the San Juans home. The evenings are spent in beach camps, where classic Northwest cuisine (roast salmon!) is served as you watch the sun set over the Pacific Outfitter: REI ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs When to Go: June, July, August, September Price: $895 Difficulty: Moderate

Greece: Cycling Crete
The double steeps: Crete is steeped in history–you'll pass by the ruins of Knossos, Gortyn, and Festos on your week-long journey–and Crete's roads are steep. On this cycling trip you'll power up the islands rugged mountains and coastline as you cycle from inn to inn and taverna to taverna experiencing the best hospitality the Cretans have to offer. Flower-festooned houses greet you as you come out of the mountains and into inland villages. And although it's ancient, Crete loves new visitors. Outfitter: The Northwest Passage When to Go: May, October Price: $1890 Difficulty: Moderate

Best Trips of 2001: High Altitude ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs

High Altitude ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs

An uncommon view: the North Face of K2 seen from Xinjian Uygur, China

From the highest hill in Indochina (cool) to the highest summit in New Zealand (cold) to the base of the second-highest peak in the world (colder). We've done the research. The rest is up to your legs and lungs.

China: The Back Door to K2

This is K2 with a twist. Mountaineer Jim Williams, a 30-year Himalayas veteran, leads a 32-day trek to the base of this 28,250-foot peak, the world's second-highest, from Xinjiang Uygur, a predominately Muslim, Turkish-dialect-speaking, autonomous region of China. One advantage to this approach (versus the usual route from the increasingly crowded Pakistani side) is the sheepherding and farming Uighur cultures encountered in the town of Kashgar before the trip's most rigorous slog: a six-hour-per-day, 14-day trek to the K2 glacier and a 12,631-foot base camp. Afterward, there's the 15,524-foot Khunjerab Pass, where five of the world's most impressive mountain rangesā€”the Hindu Kush, Kunlun, Tian Shan, Karakoram, and Himalayaā€”converge. Outfitter: Geographic Expeditions When to Go: “³³Ü²Ō±šā€“S±š±č³Ł±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $7,490 Difficulty: Strenuous ā€”Sam Moulton

Breathe Deep Peru: Climbing and Trekking in the Cordillera Vilcanota
Acclimatize on the classic three-day Inca Trail trek to Machu Picchu. Then veer off the gringo route and through the rarely visited Cordillera Vilcanota, a range of 12,000- to 15,000-foot peaks, to climb 20,945-foot Nevado Ausangate. You'll stage a one-day summit bid from a 17,000-foot camp on the backside of the peak. “The crux of the climb,” says Vince Anderson, owner of Skyward Mountaineering, “is a 50-degree glacial headwall early on.” The rest is, uh, cake: scrambling around crevasses to the top and then returning to Cuzco on foot 21 days after you set out. Outfitter: Skyward Mountaineering $3,500 When to Go: “³³Ü²Ō±šā€“A³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Ł Difficulty: Moderate

Canada: Backcountry Snowboarding Rogers Pass, British Columbia
On day one of this five-day, 30,000-foot-total vertical trip, intermediate boarders learn backcountry travel basics, route selection, and avalanche-transceiver techniques. Then they ascend the powder keg that is British Columbia's 8,000- to 11,000-foot Selkirk Range on snowshoes or split boards and carve down epic, 4,000-foot alpine runs. “We set you up for success with steep chutes, wide-open bowls, and treed glades,” says Yamnuska owner David Begg. Nights are spent in local hotels (on your dime), and each of the last four days involves tough decisionsā€”Dome Glacier? Hermit Basin? Young's Peak? Don't worry, you can't go wrong.Outfitter: Yamnuska, Inc. When to Go: ¹ó±š²ś°ł³Ü²¹°ł²āā€“A±č°ł¾±±ō Price: $520 Difficulty: Strenuous

Vietnam: Fan-si-pan Summit
Trek through lush fields of orchids and wild medicinal herbs to mingle with Hoang Lien Mountains hill tribes before reaching a surreal high-alpine environment of bamboo thickets, pine trees, and rhododendron. You'll slog through wet, steep jungle foothills, camping en route to the highest peak in Indochina, 10,312-foot Fan-si-panā€”a far cry from the Himalayas and Andes, not to mention homeā€”with glimpses of southern China. Outfitter: Snow Lion ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs When to Go: November Price: $2,000 Difficulty: Easy
New Zealand: Climbing Mount Cook
The ascent of 12,346-foot Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest, is “much more technical than Denali,” says Bryan Carter, managing director of outfitter Alpine Guides. The obstacles are numerous: heavy glaciation, big vertical scale (5,300 feet), and unpredictable weather. Consequently, you (a fit and skilled mountaineer) are allotted seven days for what could well take four. The payoff is a panorama of the Mackenzie Basin grasslands, the Tasman Glacier, and the Tasman Sea from a crowd-free mountaintop; only about 250 people summit each year.Outfitter: Alpine Guides When to Go: ±·“Ē±¹±š³¾²ś±š°łā€“M²¹°ł³¦³ó Price: $1,400 Difficulty: Strenuous

Peru: Trekking in the Cordillera Vilcabamba
From coffee and tea plantations to sub-tropical forests and 6000 meter peaks, this 21-day adventure takes in all of Peru's Cordillera Vilcabamba, an area that has had few visitors in the past several centuries. Highlanders still wear their traditional dress and Incan roads still criss-cross the area. On your journey you'll trek four or five hours per day with ample lunch breaks and time to explore local villages and investigate the wildlife. You'll also cross five high-mountain passes, including the 16,000 foot Incachiriasca Pass before winding down your adventure with a visit to Machu Picchu. Outfitter: KE ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Travel When to Go: July-August Price: $2795 Difficulty: Strenuous
Alaska: Ski Mountaineering and Rafting in Glacier Bay NP Space.
That's what you'll notice when descending in your seaplane toward Glacier Bay on the first day of your arctic adventure. For twelve days, you'll be out there in Alaska's wide expanse, traversing the jagged blue ice of the Riggs glacier, climbing and skiing peaks that have never been skied, camping on ice, and descending the massive LeBlondou Glacier to the Tsirku River for 2-days of rafting. Outfitter: Alaska Mountain Guides & Climbing School, Inc. When to Go: June Price: $2400 Difficulty: Strenuous

France: Cycling the French Alps
If you take this trip, you'll be just like Lance Armstrong. Minus the cycling titles. Minus the against-all-odds story. Minus coverboy status. (Okay, so you both breathe oxygen.) This ten-day bike trip takes you onto the Route Des Grande Alpes and stages 14, 15, and 16 of the 2000 Tour de France. You'll pedal 70-100 kilometers a day, passing the Gorge de Cians on your way to the high passes of Col d'Iozard, Croix de Fer , and the 21 switchbacks of the l'Alpe d'Heuz. And, pardon my French, you'll rest your tired keister at night in some of the Alps most inviting resorts and inns. Outfitter: Cyclevents When to Go: July, August Price: $1850 ($950 if you camp) Difficulty: Strenuous
Tanzania: Climbing Kilimanjaro
Steep climbs and high altitude mark the Machame Route, a little traveled but highly scenic trail to the top of Kilimanjaro. This non-technical ascent will take you through cloud-forests and groves of giant heather before you reach the roof of Africa. But as a warm-up, you'll spend the first half of your two-week trip viewing wildlife in Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire, and Manyara National Parks. Outfitter: Mountain Travel Sobek When to Go: January, February, June, July, August, September, December Price: $3990 Difficulty: Strenuous
Italy: Hiking the Dolomites
Imagine the Von Trapp's slurping spaghetti or Pavarotti singing Edelweiss, and you've captured the Dolomites, the northern border of Italy where Austrian and Italian cultures mingle in villages set among alpenrose blanketed valleys and jagged chamois-haunted peaks. This eight-day trek takes you to the picturesque Alto Adige region, Puez Odle Park, and Lake Crespeina. You'll lunch in some of the regions rifugi (mountain huts) and experience the wild and scenic land mountain people have made their home for centuries. Outfitter: Backroads When to Go: June, July, September Price: $3298 Difficulty: Moderate

Best Trips of 2001: Biohazards

Biohazards

In certain corners of the globe, you don't go without bug protection, you don't swim in the rivers, and for God's sake, you don't drink the water. Here are the top ten cooties to avoid.

1. Schistosomiasis Snails in lakes and rivers in Brazil, northern Africa, and Southeast Asia carry microscopic fluke larvae that cause fever, diarrhea, and possibly deadly seizures from brain lesions.

2. Leptospirosis Animal-urine-tainted water, common in Southeast Asia and India, breeds biting parasites that bring on fever, chills, kidney failure, and internal hemorrhaging.

3. Leishmaniasis Sand-fly bites in the tropics and subtropics can cause oozing sores, anemia, and a swollen spleen and liver.

4. River Blindness On river shores in Central Africa, Yemen, and Central America, bites from female blackflies infected with a worm parasitecause cysts and sometimes blindness.

5. African Sleeping Sickness Fever, skin lesions, rash, and possible brain swelling are the woes that tsetse flies bestow in the tropical African savanna.

6. Dengue Fever It's a tropical/subtropical mosquito-borne virus featuring headache, chills, feverā€”and nasty complications like internal hemorrhaging and deadly pneumonia.

7. Japanese Encephalitis Get vaccinated against this virus before heading to the Far East or eastern Russia to avoid mosquito-bite-induced paralysis, seizures, and, in advanced cases, coma or death.

8. Lymphatic Filariasis Tropical mosquitoes squirt parasitic worms into your blood, causing your lymph nodesā€”and, at worst, testiclesā€”to swell to the size of coconuts.

9. The Plague This devastating 14th-century bacterial disease, transmitted by fleas, is still imparting open sores and swollen lymph nodes (which can hemorrhage and cause gangrene) anywhere wild rodents thrive.

10. Rift Valley Fever Use extreme caution when traveling to African regionsā€”including the Senegal River Basin and the Nile Deltaā€”during outbreaks of this rare flea-, spider-, and mosquito-borne killer. ā€”Tim Neville

Best Trips of 2001: Africa

Africa

The timeless life: A villager transports the harvest in Mozambique.

You've Land Rovered the Okavango Delta in search of the Big Five with your zoom lens extended, watched a lion kill an antelope from 100 yards. You're not done yet. Now it's time to navigate Africa's raging whitewater, cycle Senegal, dive with sea turtles in the Indian Oceanā€”in other words, explore the lesser-known jewels of the greatest continent.

Mozambique: The Total Eclipse Package
Think of this as a 15-day astronomical quest. Your destination? The grassy hills in northwest Mozambique, near Changaraā€”one of the few places on Earth where the first total solar eclipse of the new millennium will be completely visible. From Johannesburg, you'll head north, camping on the sandy white beaches of Mozambique before heading west, deeper into the country than any commercial expedition has gone before. You'll spot lions, cheetahs, and elephants from the rooftop deck of your converted Mercedes-Benz jeep (plush!) as you traverse the savanna, stopping to watch the sun completely disappear on June 21. After the eclipse, you'll loop down through Zambia and Botswana, with a stop in the Makgadikgadi Pans Game Reserveā€”where hyenas, zebras, and antelope roamā€”on your way back to South Africa.Outfitter: Journeys International When to Go: June Price: $2,195 Difficulty: Easy ā€”David Friedland
Do it Differently Ethiopia: Blue Nile Trekking and Rafting
The Blue Nile Gorge's spectacular mile-high basalt walls (it's been dubbed the Grand Canyon of Africa) are the highlight of this 22-day trip. Start out by learning the country's history and exploring the 400-year-old stone architecture of the Ethiopian highlands en route to Lake Tana, the headwaters of the Blue Nile. There, you'll begin a seven-day, 60-mile trek downstream, camping on the river's rocky eastern banks amidst hippos and colobus monkeys. At the Blue Nile Gorge, put in for a seven-day, 120-mile, Class II-III raft, stopping to meet the Borano, Welo, and Shewa people, many of whom have had little contact with foreigners. Outfitter: Mountain Travelā€“Sobek When to Go: September Price: $3,990Difficulty: Moderate

Tanzania: Walking Safari in the Selous and the Serengeti
Slip into some gaiters and hiking boots, and spend nine days camping and bushwhacking along thorny paths trampled by giraffes, zebras, and large-tusked elephants in one of the world's largest animal parks, the little-visited, 22,000-square-mile Selous Game Reserve. After the trek, take a side trip to the 100-square-mile Ngorongoro Crater, a three-million-year-old caldera with a high concentration of East African animal speciesā€”including lions, wildebeests, pink flamingos, and rare black rhinosā€”living beneath its 2,000-foot walls. Outfitter: Geographic Expeditions When to Go: ¹ó±š²ś°ł³Ü²¹°ł²āā€“M²¹°ł³¦³ó, “³³Ü±ō²āā€“A³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Ł, October Price: $4,395Difficulty: Moderate
Aldabra: Snorkeling, Diving, and Wildlife Watching
The Aldabra Atoll, a speck in the Indian Ocean 260 miles north of Madagascar, has ten times more nesting green turtles (2,000) than annual visitors (200). With its narrow channels and lagoons, the 19-by-8-mile raised coral atoll is also one of Africa'sā€”and the world'sā€”best drift-diving sites. You'll spend nine sunbaked days on the Indian Explorer, a 14-passenger live-aboard, diving and snorkeling among the parrotfish, grouper, and yes, turtles, of Aldabra and the nearby Cosmoledo and Assumption Islands.The Outfitter: Explore, Inc. When to Go: Marchā€“April, November Price: $4,495Difficulty: Easy
Senegal: Cycling the Saloum River Valley
This 13-day, 350-mile loop on mostly flat, paved roads and jeep trails is as authentic-western-Africa as it gets. You'll carry your own gear as you pedal a hybrid bicycle through the mango orchards, cashew groves, and savannas of the Saloum River valley, bunking in small hotels and local villagers' homes along the way. Refuel with yassa, a mixture of meat, onions, and spices, and mafe, a peanut sauce served over rice, prepared by local Wolof, Serra, Dioula, and Peul ethnic groups. Outfitter: Bicycle Africa Price: $1,190 Difficulty: Moderate

Best Trips of 2001: Most Remote

Most Remote

Tall, silent types: saguaros in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona

A jet and helicopter can get you just about anywhere quickly; remoteness isn't about mere distance. It's about removal. A truly wild locale swallows you whole. It's a place where you are least likely to run into some clod yakking on a cell phone. It's a place where the locals have no idea what a cell phone is. Maybe it's a place where there are no locals at all.

The Sonoran Desert: Plenty of Nothing

The phrase “lush desert” may reek of oxymoron, but in springtime the Sonoranā€”with its massive saguaros and organ-pipe cacti, as well as Mexican gold poppies, magenta owl clover, and indigo desert lupineā€”is just that. Motor down dusty, rarely visited roads into Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, just north of the Mexico border in Arizona, and then backpack three miles farther. Take day hikes from base camp into the Ajo and Bates Mountains, checking water holes for desert bighorn, Sonoran pronghorn, and javelina. Then head to the even more desolate, sparsely vegetated Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge to finish off your Abbey-esque week. “The silence and purity of this place is what people are looking for,” says guide Howie Wolke. Fortunately for you, few people look for them so hard that they end up this deep in the desert. Outfitter: Big Wild ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs When to Go: March Price: $1,200 Difficulty: Easy ā€”Nate Hoogeveen

Lose Yourself Bhutan: Trekking Lunana in Northern Bhutan
Nostalgic for pre-1950 Tibet? Lunanaā€”a region of northern Bhutan that sees fewer than 75 Westerners per yearā€”is your place. Hike five to 15 miles a day for 28 days, passing through lowland jungles en route to Laya, a mountain village close to the Tibetan border, and encounter nomadic shepherds and villagers dwelling in stone huts. Then leave humankind in the dust to travel eastward, crossing 15,000- to 17,000-foot passes beneath craggy peaks, including the world's tallest unclimbed mountain, 24,900-foot Gangkhar Puensum. Outfitters: Geographic Expeditions, High Asia Exploratory Mountain Travel Co., Karakoram Experience, Snow Lion Expeditions When to Go: ³§±š±č³Ł±š³¾²ś±š°łā€“O³¦³Ł“Ē²ś±š°ł Price: $5,000ā€“$6,535Difficulty: Strenuous
Alaska: Rafting the Kennicott, Chitina, and Copper Rivers
Blast down the frothy Kennicott River and then float 150 miles in 12 days of the ever-widening Chitina and Copper Rivers along the western border of the Wrangellā€“St. Elias National Park, home to eagles, elk, grizzlies, and the 16,000-foot peaks of the Wrangell and St. Elias ranges. For a finale, watch skyscraper-size ice chunks calving from Child Glacier from a safe distance across the river about five miles from the Pacific; then dodge floating bergs all the way to the sea. Outfitter: Too-loo'-uk River Guides When to Go: July Price: $2,200 Difficulty: Moderate
Mongolia: Fly-Fishing Northern Mongolia
During the course of 13 days, you'll cast into four wide riversā€”the Chuluut, Soumin, Shishgid, and Tengisā€”for lenok (similar to North American browns), taimen (imagine a salmon-anaconda hybrid), and Arctic grayling. At night, sleep in heated domedgers on plains that evoke western Montanaā€”sans ranchettes, ski trams, and fences. If you're lucky, nomads will visit to share their blowtorch-roasted, tuber-filled marmot.Outfitter: Boojum Expeditions When to Go: “”³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Łā€“S±š±č³Ł±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $4,600 Difficulty: Easy
Argentina: Backpacking the Patagonian Ice Cap
Spend 12 days backpacking over windy passes to get to and from the rolling glacial ridges of southern Argentina's Patagonian Ice Cap. Once there, you'll spend two days covering 20 miles of the 350-mile-long glacier, the world's largest nonpolar ice cap, where the weather is notoriously inclement (even though the altitude tops out at a mere 4,000 feet), with high winds and, as a result, horizontal snow. When the sky clears, you'll discover 11,000-foot peaks surrounding the glacier and backside views of the massive granite monoliths Mount Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. Outfitters: Exum Mountain Guides When to Go: ¶Ł±š³¦±š³¾²ś±š°łā€“F±š²ś°ł³Ü²¹°ł²ā Price: $4,190ā€“$4,590 Difficulty: Strenuous

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Best Trips of 2001: Open-Air Classroom

Open-Air Classroom

Steep learning curve: instructor Doug Coombs on La Meije Coulouir, La Grave, France

A wise man once said, “experience breeds knowledge.” He was right, of course, but we say it never hurts to have an expert show you the ropes when you're taking up a new pursuit. It also never hurts to seek out the best possible classroom. Steep skiing? La Grave. Expedition canoeing? The Boundary Waters. Mountaineering? Bolivia's Cordillera Real. Any questions?

France: TrƩs Glacial

Ski for a week in the shadows of 19th-century mountaineering pioneers in myriad bowls and chutes of virgin powder from your lodge-base in the 12th-century agricultural village of La Grave with one of the most talented instructors in the world. Bragging rights for you and your classmates include classics like the 3,300-foot, 45-degree Freaux Couloir and the 7,500-foot Girose, which starts with a glacial face plunge, continues with a 40-foot rappel over a frozen waterfall, and then ends with a couloir and a river crossing for good measure. The vertical is served by one main lift, but that's the mountain's only concession to convenience: There is no grooming, ski patrol, or avalanche control. Which is precisely why steep-skiing guru and outfitter Doug Coombsā€”pioneer of over 100 first descents in Alaska and two in Antarcticaā€”and his guides make avalanche awareness, rescue, and terrain evaluation part of the daily agenda. Outfitter: Steep Skiing Camps Worldwide When to Go: January-February Price: $1,995 Difficulty: Strenuous ā€”Ben Hewitt

Take Note Minnesota: Expedition-Canoeing School in the Boundary Waters
Think canoeing rates up there with river tubing for difficulty? Then you've never navigated the endless maze of deep, placid waterways of the 1.1-million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. To go on your own, crack orienteering skills would be a must, and only proficiency in pry- and J-strokes would ensure you made it to camp each day before midnight. On this eight-day learning expedition, you'll master these techniques as well as how to portage, balance out 50 pounds in your craft, and identify the dull, thumping you'll hear at night as the mating call of the local ruffed grouse.Outfitter: Voyageur Outward Bound School When to Go: ²Ń²¹²āā€“S±š±č³Ł±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $1,095 Difficulty: Moderate
Florida: Live-Aboard Sailing Instruction in the Keys
For seven days a 46-foot Hunter sloop will be your classroom, and Hawks Channel, the four- to six-mile-wide strip of calm azure water that separates the Keys from the coral reef that runs their length, your campus. You'll learn navigation, engine mechanics, docking, and how to tack between Key West, where you'll stock up on merlot, and the reef, where you'll scout for dolphins. Pass the final written test, and you'll earn certification in basic and bareboat cruising. But by the fifth day, anchored off of Boot Key with the sun slinking over the horizon, you'll have long forgotten you're in school.Outfitter: Offshore Sailing School When to Go: Year-round Price: $1,995 Difficulty: Moderate
Bolivia: Learning Mountaineering in the Andes
After two days' training in crampon technique, crevasse rescue, and self-arrest on a glacier at 16,000 feet at the start of this two-week course, you'll pack your tent and leave your cozy lakeside hut for 17,000-foot-high base camp on Huayna Potosi. Front-pointing your way up the mountain's 55-degree ice sheet to its 19,870-foot summit is your midterm, and it's a lesson in extremesā€”the turquoise sprawl of Lake Titicaca lies below you to the northwest and 21,201-foot Mount Illimani is above you to the south. Take a good look: Illimani's sustained 45-degree slopes await the bite of your ice axe in week two.Outfitter: Colorado Mountain School When To Go: July Price: $2,400 Difficulty: Moderate
Oregon: Whitewater Kayaking Classon the Rogue River
After five days of learning basic paddle strokes, rolling, and rapid scouting within sprinting distance of a hot tub and fireplace, you'll embark on a four-day, 33-mile, raft-supported journey down the Wild and Scenic section of the Rogue River. You'll navigate progressively more difficult Class I-III rapids, watching for bear, cougar, and great blue heron at water's edge. Evenings will find you pitching camp on wide, sandy beaches beneath granite canyon walls.Outfitter: Sundance River Center When to Go: “³³Ü²Ō±šā€“S±š±č³Ł±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $1,850 Difficulty: Moderate

Best Trips of 2001: Grand Openings

Grand Openings — The world's destinations

It's just a step to the left: climbing “The Crawl,” Grand Teton Wyoming; Red-eyed tree frog, Costa Rica; moray eel, Great Barrier Reef, Australia; Rangiroa Atoll, Tahiti

Tuva, Russia
Visa-securing hassles have been steadily decreasing since the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991ā€”opening the door for a trickle of visitors to horseback ride into the Sayan Mountains' alpine lakes (there are no rentals; buy a steed for $500 in Kyzyl), and paddle the republic's Kyzyl-Khem River, a Class IV run recently discovered by outfitters. Contact: Russian Embassy

Southeastern Myammar
In 1991, this nation's oppressive military regime signed peace pacts with the Pa-O, a sovereignty-seeking hill tribe that lives primarily in southeastern Myanmar. But it wasn't until a few years ago that hostilities were sufficiently quelled for adventurers to begin trekking through the rolling tea fields of the Shan Hills near Thailand without fear of being caught in the crossfire. Go with an outfitter (such as Asia Transpacific) and you'll avoid paying a mandatory fee of $200 to the government.
Saudi Arabia
It used to be that a holy pilgrimage to Mecca or a work visa were the only viable excuses for setting foot on a plane bound for this Arab kingdom. But in 1999, the government began warming up to tourism, allowing Saudi Arabian Airlines to dispense visas to outfitters like Geographic Expeditions and Mountain Travel-Sobek, who both lead jeep trips to the Red Sea, the 6,000-foot Asir Mountains, and the Arabian Desert. Contact: Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia
Southern Namibia
The 1,000-foot-tall red sand dunes of Sossusvlei and the seals and desert elephants of the Skeleton Coast are the draws, as is the reprieve from the tourist crowds in the neighboring adventure-travel meccas of South Africa and Botswana. What's kept the throngs away? For two weeks in August of 1999, secessionist violence in the tiny northeastern region of Caprivi threw the country into a state of emergency, which has since been lifted. But the rest of the country is ripe for travel, as long as you avoid Caprivi and its neighboring Kavango region, where the civil war in Angola spills over the border. Contact: Namibian Embassy ā€”Tim Neville

Best Trips of 2001: Multisport ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs

Multisport ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs

Trans-Isthmus Highway: Avoiding the washboard halfway across Costa Rica

Sure, you'd love to sea kayak around Africa, cycle across Canada, and hike the Pacific Crest Trail this year, but limited vacation time kind of negates those plans. The following trips may not land you a featured spot on the Discovery Channel, but any one will take you on a whirlwind sports extravaganzaā€”and get you out of the office long enough for you to consider never going back.

Costa Rica: Costa to Costa

It's a masochist's dreamā€”crossing an entire nation by muscle power in less than 15 days. (OK, it's slim-jim Costa Rica, but it still counts.) The 145-mile west-to-east adventure mixes five glute-burning days threading a mountain bike through the dense cloudforests fo the Tapanti National Wildlife Refuge, with four days hoofing it up the steep, winding passes of the central Cordillera de Talamanca and over the 7,600-foot Continental Divide, and winds up with four days' careening down to the Caribbean finish in a raft on the Class III-IV Pacuare River. But it's not all uphill drudgeryā€”there's a leisurely stopover at a coffee plantation for some rich local java, time to soak in a steaming hot spring, and a splashing champagne celebration in the surf at journey's end. Outfitter: BikeHike ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs When to Go: Year-round Price: $2000 Difficulty: Strenuous ā€”Jason Daley

Do It All Tahiti: Hiking, Sailing, Kayaking, and Snorkeling
At the start of this 11-day outing, you'll hike to see the triple waterfalls of Fa`arumai and the black-basalt sand beach of Matavai. Then it's time to cast off for four days aboard a 57-foot catamaran, from which you'll take kayak expeditions around Tiputa Pass's most remote lagoons, snorkel in the translucent waters of Rangiroa, the world's second-largest atoll, and gawk at towering tropical volcanoes and Day-Glo coral outcroppings throughout the island chain. Outfitter: Wilderness Travel When to Go: Mayā€“June, October Price: $3,500 Difficulty: Easy

Australia: Mountain Biking, Bushwalking, and Rafting Northern Queensland
The faint of heart might be tempted to pass this trip overā€”the 15-day itinerary includes trekking around croc-infested swamps. Don't let the reptiles scare you away. As a multisport nirvana, Australia's sporting opportunities outweigh the risks ten times over. You'll sleep in a hammock near a 100-foot waterfall, mountain bike over gritty gravel roads in Danbulla State Forest, bushwalk two days through the lush rainforests of the Mulgrave Valley, raft the pumping Class III-IV Russel River, sail and scuba dive among Great Barrier Reef sea turtles and dolphins, and sea kayak between the uninhabited Barnard Islands. Outfitter: REI ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs When to Go: ²Ń²¹²āā€“N“Ē±¹±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $2,295 Difficulty: Moderate

Wyoming: Canoeing, Climbing, Mountain Biking, Horseback Riding, and Rafting through the Tetons
This trip is lodge-based, so your only after-dark exertions will be nursing blisters and chowing down on buffalo steak. The days are a different story: First you'll hike the Hermitage Point Trail beneath the shadow of eight of the grandest Tetons. On day two, you'll either canoe mirrorlike Jackson Lake or take a rock-climbing courseat Cascade Canyon on Jenny Lake. Day three, thread the smooth singletrack up Cache Creek Trail and then down rugged Game Creek Trail. Dessert? A half-day horseback ride through the Gros Ventre Wilderness and an overnight whitewater-raftingtrip on the Class III Snake River. Outfitter: Tahoe Trips and Trails When to Go: July Price: $1,510 Difficulty: Moderate

Iceland: Hiking, Biking, Rafting, and Horseback Riding in the South
Iceland's combination of volcanic activity and Arctic climate makes for unparalleled multifaceted terrainā€”glaciers calve and re-form with alarming frequency, earthquakeshave opened cracks in the earth as recently as 1998, lava nearly always flows, and there are hundreds of bubbling hot springs. For six days, you'll visit geothermal vents, raft Class II rapids on the icy HvĆ­e;tĆ”e; River, and ride Icelandic steeds over a surreal, lava-encrusted moonscape. To shock your senses after that monochromatic landscape, you'll chase the horseback ride with a hike and mountain-bike ride through the Heidmƶrk Recreational Area, carpeted with thousands of poppies. Outfitter: Borton Overseas When to Go: “³³Ü²Ō±šā€“A³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Ł Price: $1,690 (includes international airfare)Difficulty: Easy

Best Trips of 2001: Paddling

Paddling

Torrents of spring: finishing off the third and final section of Idaho's Salmon

There are almost as many water conditions (frothy, glassy, curling) as there are places to paddle. Almost. Here are five of the best spots (rivers, surf breaks, island channels) and ways (sea kayaking, whitewater kayaking, heli-rafting) to get wet this year.

The Salmon River: Either/Oar
Bounce down all three branches of the Salmonā€”Middle, Main, and Lowerā€”the longest stretch of undammed river in the Lower 48, by paddle raft. The Salmon drops more than 5,000 feet in 256 miles through the Frank Churchā€“River of No Return Wilderness Area, and is as diverse as it is epic: cold and creeklike in the ponderosa pines at Boundary Creek, the alpine put-in; warm and wide among the more arid, beachy lower section. The thumping Class II-V rapids (there are over 100 rapids on the 100-mile stretch of the Middle alone), hot-spring interludes, side-hikes to old mining settlements and Shoshone Indian sites, and excellent fly-fishing for smallmouth bass, sturgeon, and cutthroat trout, will keep you more than busy for 17 days.Outfitter: O.A.R.S. When to Go: “³³Ü²Ō±šā€“A³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Ł Price: $3,280 Difficulty: Moderateā€”Sam Moulton
Make Waves Equador: Surf Kayaking the Pacific
Surf-bum for a week on the coast of Ecuador, north of the town of Montanito. Sessions of riding the five- to nine-foot green faces of a secret point break in a surf kayakā€”a tricky taskā€”are punctuated by naps and meals of fresh corvina (a local fish).Accommodations at the hotel (the nicest in town)are only slightly more upscale than a surf camp, says Small World ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs owner Larry Vermeeren: “The windows are cracked and the water's not hot.” A surf bum wouldn't have it any other way. Outfitter: Small World ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs When to Go: ±·“Ē±¹±š³¾²ś±š°łā€“M²¹°ł³¦³ó Price: $995 Difficulty: Strenuous

Canada: Heli-Rafting British Columbia's Klinaklini River
For the eighth time, Butterfield and Robinson, the only outfitter with a Klinaklini River license, will fly clients into the Coast Mountains of northwestern British Columbia for a seven-day, 90-mile descent of the icy river, from heavily forested lake country to Knight Inlet, off the northern tip of Vancouver Island. You'll splash down long wave trains, around logjams, and through glacier-fed Class IIā€“V rapids. “If the water weren't moving,” says expedition planner Andrew Murray, “it'd be frozen.” Outfitter: Butterfield and Robinson When to Go: “³³Ü±ō²āā€“A³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Ł Price: $5,250 Difficulty: Moderate

Mexico: Whitewater Kayaking the Zimatan and Copalita Rivers
Navigating the tight lines within the steep white granite gorges on the upper and lower branches of the Zimatan and Copalita Rivers, you'll encounter play spots, holes, and waves for flatspinning, low-angle cartwheeling, and plenty of must-make moves(as in “Ya gotta stay right, or…well…just stay right!”). After six days paddling the clear, 70-degree Class III-IV waters, tumbling through the lush, high-canopied thorn forests of the southern state of Oaxaca, you'll be dumped into the Pacific near the town of La Cruzecita. Outfitter: Agua Azul When to Go: °æ³¦³Ł“Ē²ś±š°łā€“N“Ē±¹±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $1,450 Difficulty: Strenuous

Tonga: Sea Kayaking the Vava'u Islands
Paddle for 12 days through the Vava'us, a labyrinth of 55 South Pacific islands located about 140 miles north of the main island of Tonga. Mornings are spent kayaking (you'll log two hours a day of mellow paddling in marine caves and alongside limestone cliffs that resemble tilted wedding cakes), afternoons are for snorkeling the hard coral reefs and taking the occasional nip of kava (muddy-dishwater-tasting, mellow-buzz-providing local brew) with island villagers, and nights are all about beach-camping.Outfitter: Mountain Travelā€“Sobek When to Go: ³§±š±č³Ł±š³¾²ś±š°łā€“O³¦³Ł“Ē²ś±š°ł Price: $2,290 Difficulty level: Easy

Best Trips of 2001: Global Warning

Global Warning

In these fragile, frigid ecosystems, the phrase tread lightly takes on a whole new meaning.

Lured by icefloe wildlife and the world's last remaining true wilderness, increasing numbers of would-be Shackletons are venturing beyond the Arctic and Antarctic Circlesā€”the chilly climes 66.5 degrees north and 66.5 south of the equator. Nearly 10,000 people visited Antarctica in Y2K (up from fewer than 1,000 just 25 years ago). But are the plants and animals ready for a wave of human visitors? Hardly. These extremely fragile ecosystems require extremely low-impact travel.

Most Polar Animals, be they musk oxen in Greenland or Antarctic chinstrap penguins, have never seen or heard a human, much less a neon anorak or a crackling two-way radio. Your presence will be stressful. To minimize your impact, stay at least 100 feet away from animals at all timesā€”and don't even think about feeding them.

Fire is a constant danger at the poles, which are the driest regions on the planet (parts of Antarctica get less than two inches of precipitation per year). Open fires, which pose a huge threat to man-made structures, are prohibited.

The fewest plants that can survive the harsh polar climate, including lichens and snow algaes, are protected species that don't fare well under boot soles. A footprint in polar moss, of which there are some 350 Antarctic varieties, lasts ten years.

Human waste is preserved for decades due to the aridity. Pack it out. ā€”Christian DeBenedetti

Polar Protection: In addition to high winds and frigid temps, polar travelers should prepare for blistering dry air (bring the thickest lotion you can find, such as Bag Balm), the world's most intense ozone-hole UV rays (and 40 SPF zinc-oxide), and blinding sunlight (and ultra-dark sunglasses that provide 99ā€“100 percent UV protection). ā€”C.¶Ł.

Best Trips of 2001: Arctic and Antarctic

Arctic and Antarctic

It can be balmy above the Circle: cruising the Salten Coast in Arctic Norway

Daylight and big-sky vistas are the rule in these geological playgroundsā€”places where ice and ocean and rock collideā€”while obnoxious tourists are as rare as bikinis. You can scale a peak, paddle along white sand beaches, and be the first to descend a glacier-fed river. You might even do all three in one day.

Norway: It's Like Jamaica, but Colder

This eight-day, 75-mile fjordland sea-kayaking trip begins near Narvik, Norway, and heads south along the Salten Coast to Skutvik. White beaches and clear water cast a Caribbean feel, and high-pressure air pushed out of Siberia sometimes makes for balmy weather; air temperatures can reach into the eighties, but 50 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit with rain is the norm, and inlets provide protection when storms swoop in. (Water temperatures hover in the low 50s.) You'll split your nights between tents and inns such as the TranĆøy lighthouse, where you'll feast on local fare (reindeer and whale). Off your plate, puffins, seals, and porpoises play, and you'll find 8,000-year-old petroglyphs carved into granite cliffs and the occasional school of stark-naked kindergartners swimming at town beaches.Outfitter: Crossing Latitudes Sea Kayaking ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs When to Go: August Price: $1,675 Difficulty: Moderateā€”Mary Catherine O'Connor

Catch a Chill Antarctica: Climbing Vinson Massif
Spend 20 days traversing an enormous ice flat interrupted only by the jagged peaks of the Ellsworth Mountains as you make your way up Antarctica's tallest peak, 16,066-foot Vinson Massif. The weather is as fierce as you'd expect, sometimes dropping to minus 40 degrees (think of a shorter, colder McKinley climb), the moderately steep slopes require crampons, and the base-camp-style sleeping arrangements are, well, extreme.Outfitter: International Mountain Guides When to Go: ±·“Ē±¹±š³¾²ś±š°łā€“D±š³¦±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $26,000 Difficulty: Strenuous
Alaska: Kutuk River First Descent
A first-ever descent for whitewater canoeists who are long on pioneering spirit but short on technical boating skills. Aerial scouting of the Kutuk, in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska, reveals Class II-III rapids cutting through 200-foot-deep limestone canyons. Start the ten-day, 27-mile float by hiking five miles to the Arctic divide and the headwaters of the Kutuk, a tributary of the wide, waterfall-fed Alatna. Then find your airdropped Grabner inflatable canoes and push off to ply the unknown, which is likely to include boreal-forest views of the 3,500-foot Arrigetch Peaks.Outfitter: Arctic Divide Expeditions When to Go: August Price: $2,950 Difficulty: Moderate
Canada: Walking and Kayaking Newfoundland's Labrador Coast Rivers
This is the African safari's cold stepsister. Arm yourself with down and a telephoto lens to explore the Torngat Mountains along the northern border of Quebec and Newfoundland, a mere five degrees south of the Arctic Circle. The eight-day trip consists of excursions from a base camp (heated tents that sleep three to four people), including kayaking the highest concentration of ocean fjords in North America, hiking 1,200-year-old glaciers, and climbing 5,418-foot Mont D'Iberville to see land's end, polar bears, and caribou.Outfitter: Rapid Lake Lodge When to Go: “³³Ü±ō²āā€“A³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Ł Price: $2,200 Difficulty: Moderate
Greenland: Tundra Trekking
Hike across 93 miles of southwest Greenland's tundra toward the Greenland Ice Sheet, a polar ice cap, from Sisimiut, a former whaling town, to Kangerlussuaq, an abandoned army base. By August, the 20 or so other human visitors who walk this popular (by Arctic standards) route each year should be gone, as should the mosquitoes and no-see-ums. You'll need to be able to carry two weeks' worth of gear and food (about 40 pounds) across trail-less, rocky terrain and over 400-foot fjord wallsfor an average of 12 miles per day.Outfitter: Northwinds Arctic ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų When to Go: August Price: $2,360 Difficulty: Strenuous
Alaska: Backpacking the Brooks Range
The critters up north have to scurry to take advantage of the Arctic's short summer, and you will too if you want to fit in everything your NOLS instructors want to teach you. Grizzlies, wolves, muskoxen, and blisters will be your companions as you learn survival skills hiking over soft tundra and up braided river channels during your 15-day stay in the vast Brooks range. Outfitter: National Outdoor Leadership School When to Go: July, August Price: $3150Difficulty: Strenuous

Norway: Hiking Aurslandsdalen
You'll trek briskly through the countryside with the Norwegian Hiking Association for seven days on this trip, stopping along the way to spend the night in staffed lodges. Your speedy Norwegian guides will point out the region's flora and fauna as you power your way up the mountains. Few Americans end up in backcountry of Norway, so you'll have a chance to interact with European and Norwegian alpine aficionados. In the interest of national pride, try to keep up. Outfitter: Borton Overseas When to Go: July, August Price: $659 Difficulty: Strenuous
Alaska: Following Caribou Herds
Spend eight days following migrating caribou through glacier encircled valleys and wide-open tundra in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. You'll trail the herd to its summer grazing grounds, crossing dozens of unnamed creeks and mountains on your 40-mile trek. In addition to the thousands of caribou, there will be chances to see wolves, grizzlies, and golden eagles in action. This may be the time to cultivate a herd mentality. Outfitter: Arctic Wild When to Go: June Price: $2100 Difficulty: Moderate

Greenland: Kayaking Ammassalik Island
The fjords around Ammassalik Island are brimming with narwhals, seals, ermine, arctic wolves and dozens of other cold-comfort creatures. To see them, paddle your expedition sea kayak around four-story icebergs and forbidding mountains that rise directly out of the ocean. The 16-day adventure will also include time to scramble up unnamed peaks and chat with native Greenlanders who subsist on hunting and fishing in their unforgiving arctic homeland. Outfitter: Mountain Travel Sobek When to Go: July, August Price: $3190 Difficulty: Strenuous

Alaska: Rafting the Noatak Wilderness
Between fishing for grayling, climbing nearby mountains, and watching fattened caribou cross the river on their southern migration, you'll float 100 miles down the Noatak River on the edge of the arctic for nine days. Along the way, there will be an opportunity to scale a vertical mile on 7310-foot Mt. Oyukak and to watch the Northern Lights jig across the sky. Outfitter: Arctic Wild When to Go: August Price: $2600 Difficulty: Moderate

Best Trips of 2001: A Better World

A Better World

Sacred stones: praying at a Mani Wall beside the Tsangpo River, Tibet

On each of these tripsā€”and you just might help improve the planet.

Norway: The Book of the Living
Joining this Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge cultural preservation project is “like being one of the first groups to Mount Everest,” says Richard D. Fisher, director of trip-outfitter Wilderness Research Expeditions. Substitute the world's deepest canyon, the 16,650-foot-deep Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge in eastern Tibet, for its tallest mountain and you realize that this is not hyperbole. Fisher, 48, was one of the first Americans to explore the center of the gorgeā€”which is four times the size of the Grand Canyonā€”in 1992. This year he'll return with 12 clients to hike, jeep, and camp for 21 days on the canyon's floor, heading west from sand-dune desert to thick jungle. Along the way the team will collect historical documents and take photos for Fisher's book on the history of the gorgeā€”which is believed to be the birthplace of Tibetan civilization. Outfitter: Wilderness Research Expeditions When to Go: “”±č°ł¾±±ōā€“M²¹²ā Price: $5,500 Difficulty: Moderate ā€”David Friedland
Do Some Good

Spain: Mediterranean Marine Biology
Sail along the arid, deserted southern coast of Spain where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic for 12 days on a 91-year-old Norwegian fishing boat, helping University of Madrid biologists study the food-chain role of bottle-nosed and common dolphins, sperm and fin whales, and leatherback and loggerhead turtles. Plot positions, record behavior and sounds, and hoist sails as you attempt to identify critical habitats for future marine-protection areas. Outfitter: Earthwatch Institute When to Go: January, March, “³³Ü²Ō±šā€“S±š±č³Ł±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $1,995 Difficulty: Easy
Chile and Ecuador: Following Darwin's Footsteps
A 22-day exploratory trip to the major stops along Charles Darwin's 1834 Chilean route from Tierra del Fuego to Valdivia. The Nature Conservancy's local partner organization leads a hike through Torres del Paine National Park (a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve), and environmentalists talk about their struggles against the wood-chip industry. You'll visit a TNC marine-otter conservation project an hour's flight from Santiago, Chile, before heading to the GalĆ”pagos's Rabida Island, home to nine of the 13 species of finches that inspired Darwin's natural selection theory. Outfitters: The Nature Conservancy; International Expeditions Inc. When to Go: ±·“Ē±¹±š³¾²ś±š°łā€“D±š³¦±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $9,896 (includes international airfare) Difficulty: Easy

Russia: Investigating Lake Baikal's Pollution Levels
Help Russian scientists protect the deepest (more than a mile), largest by volume (14,000 cubic miles), oldest (20 million years) lake in the world and its 1,080 endemic species by taking water and fish samples from a motorized research vessel to measure chemicals and organic-waste levels. Then patrol the shorelines to observe sables and the world's biggest brown bears, and to scout potential nature-reserve sites. Hard work is rewarded with fresh salmon dinners and views of the 9,000-foot Sayan Mountains from lakeshore campsites. Outfitter: Earthwatch Institute When to Go: “³³Ü±ō²āā€“A³Ü²µ³Ü²õ³Ł Price: $1,695 Difficulty: Moderate
Kenya: Studying Bats and Elephants
Spend 12 days walking and jeep-riding in the flat, butte-fringed Taru Desert and Masai Mara Savanna, working with scientists to catch and count bats and identify and classify elephants by their tusk lengths and ear markings. With mist nets, headlamps, bat detectors, and microphones, you'll learn to distinguish the calls and wing shapes of horseshoe, free-tailed, and yellow-winged bats, which inhabit caves and acacia trees. Then you'll impart your newfound wisdom to local schoolchildren during nighttime field trips. Outfitter: Bat Conservation International When to Go: May Price: $4,145 (includes international airfare)Difficulty: Easy

Australia: Wilderness Leadership in the Kimberley
Thirty days of trekking from one water hole to the next in Australia's Outback is an education in and of itself–add NOLS expert Leave No Trace instruction and the wisdom of the aboriginal Bardi and you've got yourself some first-class learning. You'll spend your days practicing the fundamentals of expedition camping, traditional hunting techniques, and the essentials of eking out an existence in a hostile environment. Outfitters: National Outdoor Leadership School When to Go: June, July Price: $3750 Difficulty: Strenuous

Oregon: Native American Sights in Hell's Canyon
Hop in a raft and take on the Class IV Snake River through Hell's Canyon National Recreation area with Jeff van Pelt, master flint knapper and Umatilla tribal historian. You'll stop along the way to learn about Native American petroglyphs, explore pit house sites and rock shelters, and examine some of the thousands of Native American artifacts on the shores of the Snake. At the end of each of the five days, sit back on the bank and contemplate the river crossing where Chief Joseph and his band fled the Wallowa Valley. Outfitters: Hells Canyon Whitewater Co. When to Go: August Price: $1000 Difficulty: Easy

Belize: Rainforests, Reefs, and Ruins
Belize sports the world's densest population of jaguars, the Western Hemisphere's largest barrier reef, and the sparsest human population in Central America. Researchers from the American Natural History Museum will guide you on a ten-day adventure through Belize's wild side with visits to Pook's Hill Nature Reserve, Green Hill's Butterfly Farm, and the Maya Medicine Trail, where coatimundi, potoo, and the endangered Morelet's Crocodile make their home. You'll also get a full day to explore Tikal, the massive Mayan ceremonial pyramid in nearby Guatemala. Outfitters: American Museum of Natural History When to Go: March, November Price: $3450, includes airfare from Miami, Dallas, or Houston Difficulty: Easy

South Africa: Monitoring Penguins
Each morning before breakfast on this two-week trip you'll take a stroll down to the beach on Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 27 years) to observe Chilly Willy and his pals. Then, after a bite to eat, you'll spend the first part of the day checking nests, observing parent-chick interactions, and weighing African penguins. Dr. Peter Barham from the University of Bristol will brief you on how to avoid being snipped by the defensive birds and explain their behavior and what threatens them. Outfitters: Earthwatch When to Go: March, April, May, June Price: $1895 Difficulty: Easy
Dominica: Restoring Coral Reefs in the Lesser Antilles
No, Reef Ball is not the newest fun-in-the-sun watersport, it's a concrete modular reef system used to restore damaged ocean reefs throughout the world. Besides helping to build and deploy reef balls, this seven-night trip includes snorkeling, sea kayaking, opportunities to see some of Dominica's 7 species of whale and 11 dolphins, a guided hike to Boiling Lake, the world's largest volcanic lake, and trips to some of the Caribbean's premier scuba diving destinations. And best of all, you can tell everyone you took a “working vacation.” Outfitters: Reef Ball Coalition Inc. When to Go: February, April, July Price: $1399 Difficulty: Moderate

Best Trips of 2001: Over The Top

Over The Top

A remote Falkland island is the set for your own (untelevised) drama.

Want to hurl yourself off a 22,834-foot mountain, pretend you're on Survivor or crisscross the globe solving riddles? Look no further. Sure, you'll need to drop a grand or twoā€”or 50ā€”but consider the contribution you'll be making to cocktail-party-kind with your heroic tales of the most outrageous trips in the world.

Falkland Islands: Live and In Person
If spending a week among penguins, whales, and elephant seals with a group of strangers appeals, you'll come away a winner from this weeklong, mock-Survivor getaway. You and five others will fly from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a bare-bones cabin with a fully stocked pantry on a rocky, uninhabited island in the Falklands. Each morning for the next seven days, the group will vote off one of its members. (According to what criteria? That's up to you and your fellow travelers.) The banished will be flown to a second cabin on another remote island. Spend your days strolling warm, white-sand beaches or (if you're feeling hearty) taking an icy dip in the South Atlantic. No Letterman appearances await the winner, but the stargazing is exceptional. Outfitter: Tread Lightly, Ltd. When to Go: ¹ó±š²ś°ł³Ü²¹°ł²āā€“M²¹°ł³¦³ó Price: $1,500Difficulty: Easy ā€”Philip D. Armour

Go to Extremes Botswana: Hard-Core Safari
No five-course catered meals, no hand-holding by guides, no hot showersā€”there aren't even tents to sleep in on this weeklong Okavango Delta walking safari. Instead, schlepp your own 30-pound pack; machete your way through the thick papyrus forests; fish, hunt, and forage for food (roots and wild tubers); and sleep under mosquito nets in primitive, open camps, taking two-hour turns standing guard (with .458 magnums) against predators. Your one indulgence: quality time with lions, elephants, and cheetahs. Outfitter: Explore, Inc. When to Go: ²Ń²¹²āā€“S±š±č³Ł±š³¾²ś±š°ł Price: $2,450ā€“$3,500Difficulty: Strenuous

Global: Who Wants to Be a World Traveler?
A quiz show for overzealous, overpaid wanna-be world travelers. Twenty-five two-person teams will spend three weeks jetting across the planet, earning points for answering location-specific riddles in each of the cities they visit. (Sample questions: What is Marrakech's “Assembly of the Dead?” What does Bobby do there? And what food does his cousin's stall serve?) The itinerary is top secret, but “contestants” can expect to travel by foot, bike, camel, elephant, ricksha, and oxcart in a minimum of ten countries on four continents and stay in first-class hotels as the teams battle for the grand prize: $50,000 and the honorific title of “World's Greatest Travelers.”Outfitter: GreatEscape ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs Inc. When to Go: MayPrice: $22,000 per team (includes international airfare) Difficulty: Easy
North and South Poles: Skiing to the Ends of the Earth
Few people ever reach one of the earth's poles, fewer still go to both the North and South Poles, and only the most masochistic attempt the two in one year. If you fit the bill, you'll ready yourself for the physical beating at a February training session in northern Minnesota. In April you'll battle minus-15-degree temperatures, 40-mph winds, and perilously thin, unstable ice on a 120-mile, 21-day dogsled-assisted ski from the 88th parallel to the geographic North Pole. In December, you'll do it all over again down south, skiing 60 miles from 89 degrees south. Outfitter: The Northwest Passage When to Go: February, April, December Price: $50,000 Difficulty: Strenuous

Argentina: Paraglide from the Summit of Aconcagua
Introducing the latest in high-adrenaline, high-cost sports: para-alpinism! Climb up, glide down. Ultimate Ascents, the only outfitter running such trips, launched a group from Kilimanjaro last February, and this year will be the first to soar with clients from 22,834-foot Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas. After a week of glider training in Mendoza, Argentina, you'll begin a 21-day trek up Aconcagua on the Chile-Argentina border, for which you'll need basic mountaineering skills (familiarity with ice axes, crampons, and harnesses). At the top, you'll strap into a tandem paraglider with an expert pilot/guide and spend three glorious hours soaring over the Andes.Outfitter: Ultimate Ascents When to Go: Januaryā€“February, December Price: $6,500Difficulty: Strenuous

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